Well... interlude was in march, EP 9 will be december or january, but the new episode is the biggest so far too. And before and during the development for the interlude, DPC has written a whole new gamesystem too. So the game will be split and not one big file anymore. For that he had to build an savegame importsystem and such, that took its tall for the ep 9 development too cause he could not prepare work for the next episode like he was doing in the past. Those things took some time... and not only a bit. Than some other issues came up, like copyright problems with the music and than some identity thief too...
Considering that and that it will be the biggest episode so far, some set bakcs here and there and that he will release everything for steam and co too, i think we are not that far off. And DPC went a little overboard with the animations... everything else is nearly done, the animations alone will take another 5-6 weeks from now. And as we know DPC, the quality (complexity) of those animations will increase too, so they took longer to render...
All this in mind 9-10 months for episode 9 is plausible... with maybe new hardware coming (RTX 4090) the new game system already working, and if it will be a somewhat smooth release of ep 9, episode 10 might take 6-7 months again. But it would concern me a little if 9 months or more for each episode will be the "new" standard from now on. But overlooking what DPC has done the last year since EP8 iam pretty optimistic that he will get a better workflow for the next episodes... if hes not struggeling.
