Past games were made for a single hardware spec. They had traditional release schedules with no cushion of GaaS or acceptance of release-and-patch-later products. The codebase would have been simpler/smaller (less work, smaller teams, more efficient project management). Rasterization with baked static lighting gives much more bang-for-buck than dynamic time-of-day, RTRT, etc. No COVID disruption.
Hindsight being 20/20 I think they ought to have taken the FH4->FH5 approach and made FM8 a less technically ambitious update. Back-burner the rendering overhaul, focus on things that directly impact gameplay and player retention (onboarding, tutorials, progression, etc.)
If they ever want to get serious about reinvigorating this franchise they always have the option of opening up the game to modding, whether that means an in-game track authoring tool, or the ability to import and share custom authored tracks, cars, plugins, etc. In an AI/ML era where a drawing in MS Paint can be converted into a photo-realistic image there ought to be a way of generating and testing custom tracks that both look good and function well without spending months in Maya and QA testing. If they want a long-tailed GaaS lifespan then allow the community to build an ecosystem around it and feel invested in its success.
