At the moment what I expect is more a cancellation than anything else, sadly.
Could you elaborate why you think so?
Speaking as a huge fan of KoD and wishing it all success its my opinion that given the slow update rate, current conditions and what has already been implemented its highly unlikely that they will finish this game. Take a look for a moment at how the updates have been going then go in game and look at the map. There are innumerable areas on the map that cannot be accessed yet. Given that fact, in order to give purpose to even half the places on the map would necessitate Writing and art production at a scale which i do not think they are capable of. Not to mention the actual coding. I give credit where credit is do. Making these games/VN's is not simple. If it were than everyone could just crank it to their own self made perversions. But there is a difference between a game that is a labor of love and a game that makes you money. I used to support this game but i could not in good conscience continue to. A New Dawn(which i also used to support) is in almost the same boat in my opinion although the problem there is that while there are updates they aren't really adding anything to the game or advancing the story. Which is a biggie on KoD's case cause there really is ACTUAL story telling potential in addition to porn. KoD's best best now would be to rejigger the map and get rid of half the locations, Finish finding Groknak who i think happens to be a decent fellow, and get the game back on track to Sabia getting revenge on her family culminating in around 3 or 4 possible endings depending on choices, Sub/Dom, and some slight variation depending on which captain you side with. It lets them end the game gracefully so they can start a new project. Truth is, their supporters are loyal. But if this goes on to much longer without ANY regular communication let alone (quality) updates they will inevitably start Hemorrhaging supporters and that will be that.
Thank you for coming out
God bless you
Goodnight.
First of I share your worries with Hreinn Games, I feel they are one of the few Patreon devs that at least tries to make unique games that are within the fantasy genre, I'm especially worried they may disband.
But the ambitious nature of the game has been there for a long time, my guess is that they planned/plan on trying to finish the "main story" or rather Chapter 1 and then either use the rest of the assets to expand into further Chapters or to just use them as smaller side-stories that would be a step up from Noxian Nights different endings.
To be fair when I first played KoD I thought it would've either turn into a more strategy or sandbox oriented game, which would've made routes more easy to box the player into (like in say Heaven Studio's game).
The way I see it thought with development isn't so much the concern about the fact that their scope seems out of reach (with the exception of ALL the different choices, so 100% agree that you could say glue together human-only route with Rokgrid route together with some flavor text), instead it seems the issue with Hreinn Games keeps on adding more and more characters and objectives to the main story that honestly comes off as side objectives.
Also I feel that KoD is starting to become large enough with no real QoL additions to say progression routes that it's becoming increasingly harder and harder to find every side-story or even story, since it's quite linear in how you go with the story.
Still I would argue KoD is in a far better state than the mess that is Seed of Chaos, where all the side stories are mixed up and on top of that is more or less random which story gets to advance and it's just a huge mess.
The worry I have now with the story is that the Dom-to-Sub/DtD seems to be going waaaay to fast given that before they really took their time in slowly easing Sabia into 1 of two paths.
And some characters I feel seems to be heading slowly in the way of irrelevancy, Neve and Maply comes to mind.
To add to your recommendation, I honestly think they should only focus on human vs orc dynamic, the catgirls and chimera and yada, yada feels more and more like an anchor taking up unnecessary space, since it seems that those creatures was more meant to be side-stories/appetizers.
Lastly I think it's still worth supporting them especially given the circumstances of the world at the moment, understandable if you personally can't, but it's better to support and try get their side of the story, instead of not supporting them yet worry about their livelihood.
Side note: interesting though you brought up New Dawn since I always felt that Claire's Quest (*AHEM* excluding YS) takes the cake in adding 0 content that is vital to the actual main story,
