I could go on a massive rabbit hole/tangent/rant about retcons, reboots, revisions and alternate timelines etc. but this is not the place!
If that’s your headcanon, though, then that’s fair enough!
Ah, they used the engine in Daggerfall! That feels about right. Apparently (according to one reddit post I found) they lost the source code. Pity – I guess my hopes of an XnGine-based soulslike isn’t going to happen any time soon!
