Ugh...

First things first: the game is still being made/worked on - that has not changed.

So for this entire time Silicon Scars has been running on Unreal Engine - more specifically Unreal Engine version 4.27.2 - this was primarily because it was the version to which I was the most accustomed, as well as because I didn't want to be an early adopter for UE5 when I didn't know whether or not it would work well.

I have also been dual-booting between Linux and Windows in order to work on the game. Sometimes I'd get some stuff done in Linux, sometimes in Windows - always into a shared git local repository. However a few days ago a system crash occurred that borked my entire Windows installation as well as seemingly the SSD that held the game's repository.

Thankfully, I had not only made an online backup of everything (sans Git commit history) but the SSD I use for dev work is still in working order.

EXCEPT for the fact that I could no longer install the FlipWidget plugin into UE4.27.2. Why? I don't know. It *used* to work, but now it doesn't (it also really doesn't like installing on the versions of Unreal it DOES work for. FlipWidget is important because it handles ALL the weapon animations. Anyway, I ended up converting a copy of the project to Unreal 5.1 in order to get it to work. This still isn't a perfect solution - as I now have to rebuild the plugins for Linux - but the alternative is using another asset pack like CSW (didn't work out, it just kinda stopped working on me and switching out flipbooks in it is a pain in the ass for no reason) or completely remaking the animation system (as well as all of the classes that call upon it) from scratch. Technically this is doable but there's no way I'm getting it done in a timely manner without also ripping my hair out.

tl;dr The game is now running on Unreal Engine 5.1