How does FromSoftware release AAA games so frequently? Elden Ring boss says "we are just blessed with a great staff" that the studio empowers and retains
Am a professional game developer I can guarantee you that the quality of the code base of the average AAA game is no better than a small studio. It's at times a lot worse, it's just got better documentation or a bigger knowledge base. I hear the current call of duty engine is a nightmare to work on.
They can't strip it out cos it's the foundation of the engine, and I know they still use some form of the original engine so it's probably still there.
I'm aware, though these days it's more like published by heavily "Yeah I've played games, I was the best at pong in elementary school" shareholder influenced publishers and devs that make totally out of touch decisions and then lay off all the staff that were responsible for anything in the game considered good right after the game gets bad press.
I would assume so by now. Valve patched it initially for Linux users via proton but I remember my windows friends complaining about it when the game released. The last time they played to assist another friend who had just started was when the arena update came out and I didn't hear any complaining then. If they still have it with the dlc coming soon I'd be surprised. On previous titles I would expect them to stop patching after the dlc has been out for a bit, but they did patch the previous titles a while after elden ring came out when someone found a critical security flaw in the network code that affected all of them.