How in the world do games that are that old run with new content without getting too glitchy? Is this trial and error that developers work on? Are certain games unique that slapping on content is as easy as a puzzle?
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Clarification: why do you think they should? They use the same tools to make the DLC as they did for the original game. It’s 100% compatible.
Plus Bethesda games are _always_ glitchy.
A better example actually;
The product I currently work on is a successor to my employer’s best selling product (we’ll call it new X, and old X). Old X is around 20 years old. It works and has customers, but the tech-stack it was built on is out of date and has issues. I’ve worked on both new X and old X, but currently work on new X.
Old X has just gotten a new massive customer and is still the focus of the business. We push frequent high pressure updates every month or 2. Whenever something is added to old X, it’s *still* the same tech stack and the same old framework being used. But old X works and has had years of development into it, so it’s fine to just use this older tech stack to add to old X. It’s battle worn.
Now we’re developing new X. The tech stack is WAY more modern and easier to work with. We don’t have to worry about moving over old code into new code, we just write new code and it’s way easier. It’s way faster to build new X from the ground up than it would be to update old X, and there’s no risk of screwing over existing old X clients should we produce buggy code.
That is why you see stuff like GTA 5 patching old code onto gta 5 instead of making GTA 6. It’s way cheaper and easier for both parties.
software engineer here (although, not a game dev)
In general it’s because they are using the same engine/”framework”. Provided that engine doesn’t become redundant because of OS updates or conflicting software updates, there’s no reason adding more content should crash the game. Just because it’s “new” content doesn’t mean it’s entirely new code with a new framework and language. They are still using the same language and framework.
If the devs started pissing around with the engine, that would absolutely cause issues and would almost certainly crash games unless they put a lot of hours into re-working the engine to be modern. For that reason, devs tend to not touch the engine and instead just add more content to it. It’s a ton of dev time and a LOT of testing
It’s the reason WoW has the exact same graphics for the last like 15 years. The engine works (admittedly, not incredibly efficient), so they don’t touch it. Instead they are milking every possible expansion until they have to either:
A) rebuild the entire engine (doubtful because it’s VERY expensive)
or
B) stop making expansions
Because the game is only thinking about what you’re currently doing. And you’re still just walking around dungeons or mountains.
It has more info stored but isn’t using it currently. It’s only when it can’t handle thinking about too much at once that it says aight imma head out, like a waiter carrying too many plates and dropping them. The number of plates they have in storage doesn’t matter because they’re stable and safely stored away.
As someone who learns how to code for 2 years in college now, i can say its a lot of stackoverflow, chatGTP and head-banging.
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