Hard to chuck unity in the bin when you don’t use unity.
We’re lucky there are enough other engines on the market at the moment, but eventually someone will need to spearhead a FOSS engine with blackjack and hookers.
We also expect much more from sequels these days. Most old games’ sequels are just more content on the same engine with minimal new features. Spyro 2 was Spyro 1 with swimming, ice, and powerups. I don’t remember Crash Bandicoot 2 changing anything but the hub world. Did Guitar Hero make any major changes between 1, 2, or 3? Nowadays, Elder Scrolls gets significant engine upgrades between each game, as does Halo, as did Horizon. Totk’s biggest critique is “its just DLC cuz it’s in the same engine”, even though there have been some substantial, non-graphical, physics based upgrades.