There have been game engines that aged well. But yes, they're the exception, not the rule.
The real bad part is that up until now, nobody said "hey, it doesn't look that great, but the gameplay is awesome". Dated as they may be, graphics seem to trump gameplay in this title
But the gameplay isn't awesome. Its what we've been doing since we took an arrow to the knee and prior. You walk around, you see enemies, you get ultra clunky combat, you hoard everything they drop and move on for more discovery and adventure.
They added some ME Andromeda styled combat tricks and they similarly don't really work because the game's a numbers RPG at its core, surrounded by an FPS with poor gunplay. You can 'play make believe' with all of it, and if you're immersed, it'll work. But great gameplay? I beg to differ... Its still a piss poor shooter that for most will run 30-50 FPS combat scenes, and less if you're on console.
Having played a few hours now I can definitively say it fulfills my expectations completely, its a Bethesda open world title front to back, with all the old niggles and issues present. Todd knows it, Bethesda knows it, and that's all it will be. I also get a distinct NMS vibe here, but then without promises we get a half dozen content updates to add those missing features. No space travel transitions 'this is fine'..... a loading screen for the most immersive part of space traversal, I can't even think of a bigger immersion breaker, because now effectively there is no tangible difference to 'entering a new area' that warrants a loading screen. 'OH I'm in space now yay', and in practice the next step is you select some waypoint and the game presents you ANOTHER loading screen to 'land'. What the actual fuck. Seriously. Its the future and fast travel became twice as annoying.
