To be honest there is many Early Access Steam games that operate in similar way to what Helius is doing. Maybe there is some unofficial guide " How to be shady game developer " lol. I know game on Steam that is in EA for 8 years now. Everyone who complained got banned, every steam discussion is moderated to the point that people are afraid to say anything negative. Effect ? bunch of acolytes still believing in every lie, white knighting developers like they're gods and game still holds stable playerbase.
Thats just one example but behaviour like that seems to be common trend among indie developers with oberblown projects. Out of my ass example of this shady strategy: Promise AAA quality product, divide realistic ammount of time you need to finish the game with your tiny dev team by 10 ( 20 years = 2 years ), show something exctiting again when people get unpatient, stall, threat some people with bans and pose yourself as victim " making quality games is hard

why are you so mean to us ? " , promise more, stall again, threat with bans, show sexy screenshots... and continue untill dream is alive.