There's some really big innovations happening in e.g. rendering like that; I wouldn't be surprised if the complexity and work involved in just Nanite is 10x that of the whole Quake engine.
Similarly there's the work nvidia is doing, using AI technology to upscale graphics instead of rendering things at 4K.
The idea is that, the derivative came after the virtuoso. Of course what came after is more complex costs more takes more is more impressive blah blah. Dismissing those that thought the thought or solved for a problem before it was, is such a dumb thing people do.
Similarly there's the work nvidia is doing, using AI technology to upscale graphics instead of rendering things at 4K.