The developer was also part of the engine team - but kind of went rogue on us. Starting making a bunch of unwanted and deleterious bloatware edits. When asked to stop, he doubled down instead, and wouldn't quit until forcibly removed from the community. That was several years ago, and to this day he continues problematic behavior (namely, copying code from our efforts into his own engine branch and trying to claim credit for it).
The game project had stalled out quite a bit before anyway - but that mess pretty much sealed it. Sorry.
DC