They wouldn't make a new engine because that is where the capital input is spent. SH3 being a niche product, cost a lot of money to develop but sold poorly in the grand scheme of things. It's no multi-million unit seller.
That being the case, UBI would want to maximize the return on their investment by simply repacking SH3 with a new title, new theater of operations, some new ships, new features, fix all the bugs, and presto, you have SH4.
And to be frank, that is what I hope for. SH3 has so many bugs and requires so many mods to make it nice, that buying it off the shelf is only the first step.
SH3 has a good engine already. What it lacks is features and mods. Create a paciific version of the game, fix all those bugs, add all those features, and you have a subsim that will truly be the ultimate - right out of the box.
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