[pjmlp]

That was the same reasoning why Unreal dropped UnrealScript.

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/213647/Epics_Tim_Sweeney...

However a couple of years later and Epic is bringing scripting back with Verse

https://twitter.com/saji8k/status/1339709691564179464?s=20

Because the problem is not the scripting, but how it is done.

I imagine that the engine you mention did not use any kind of compiler for Lua, e.g. LuaJIT, nor batch calls across the marshalling layer.

Same happens on the Web, JavaScript JIT can outperform WebAssembly if one keeps switching all the time between layers, instead of doing batch requests.

[stephc_int13]

The engine used LuaJIT, but this is not available on iOS.

The code was a mess, absolutely no batching, quite the contrary.