The updates to CH 1 - 3.5 (with the vast majority of the extra effort going into CH's 1 & 2) are all intended to support the Steam Summers Gone Season 1 release.
I think the added publicity (and the new $) for Summers Gone will be a good thing.
Is the preparatory work for this release making things appear to slow down - yes, but it's not like we are getting nothing from this.
Per Ocean, CH 2 will be Much larger and more immersive due to all the extra work he is putting into the rework.
Now, imagine what a significant bump in resourcing can do for Ocean...
Great music can cost big bucks and he had to remove a lot of music for the upcoming Steam release due to licensing concerns.
Wouldn't it be great if better resourcing and publicity leads to some good indie music groups approaching Ocean to be included in Summers Gone?
Adding in the phone as an in-game feature will be a Big add, especially in terms of immersion - can some of the phone content be farmed to another coder to help, for example?
Who knows what scenes/environments Ocean has not shared with us because the lack of resources would just turn it into a needless tease?
Hiring someone to negotiate with the music license holders so Ocean can focus more time on creating Summers Gone is another big add once he can do this.
Some of the above might sound like pie in the sky but Steam represents an Ocean (sorry, I had to pun that...) where Patreon and SS are small lakes, in terms of exposure and the improved resourcing that can come from that publicity.
I'll say it again - Please consider wishlisting Summers Gone on Steam if you have a Steam account.
This costs $0 so every Steam account owner who reads this can afford to make this happen.