The current iteration of Unreal is completely unrecognizable from its original rendition, meanwhile this new version of the Creation Engine literally retains bugs present back in the days of Gamebryo. You simply can’t compare the two. But, in Bethesda’s defense, this isn’t due to incompetence or anything. It’s due to resource allocation and incentive.
There’s a reason most devs have been moving towards Unreal and away from making their own engines, and it’s because making your own proprietary engine takes insane amounts of time and resources - time and resources that devs don’t get any return on mind you. For most, it doesn’t make sense to dedicate loads of time to polishing an engine, when that time could be better spent on your next game - a game that you actually do get a return on.
Unreal is completely different in this regard, as Epic actually does get a return on their investment into the engine, as the engine itself is their product. So they have every incentive to polish Unreal as much as possible. That’s why it’s so insanely polished and indistinguishable from its original rendition. Not because all engines magically improve over time and at the same rate.
I know Todd Howard said that engines are somehow meaningless, and then a bunch of Bethesda fans took that and ran with it as a way to defend any criticism of the Creation Engine, but unfortunately it’s just not that simple.
And to be clear, I want the Creation Engine to succeed. I’ve been modding Bethesda games since 2013 and am still active in the modding community! The engine is rough but makes all of it possible, and the community at this point knows it so well that it’d be devastating to suddenly lose it all. But Bethesda needs to sit down and really dedicate some time to overhauling it, and unfortunately, albeit understandably, I just don’t see that happening.