eli5: How do games that have existed for years (example: skyrim anniversary) receive massive download content that adds quests, items, maps not crash?

Question

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?

In: 4

Answer 1

A better example actually;

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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 It works and has customers, but the tech-stack it was built on is out of date and has issues.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.