Cutting edge 3D game engines are incredibly complex pieces of software, and this was at the beginning of the 3D game revolution where there weren't any third pa

Cutting edge 3D game engines are incredibly complex pieces of software, and this was at the beginning of the 3D game revolution where there weren't any third party engines available, no one really knew what they were doing, and most developers didn't even have internet access; you did almost everything in house or you didn't have a game. It was completely uncharted territory, not some #yolo agile web development thing where 99% of the engineering effort is already done for you and you can just focus on the content.