The problem is, he hasn't actually abandoned it. He definitely might not be working on it regularly, but he has to be acutely aware of the perception since his Discord is pretty much full of people asking about the release daily.I think F95 should treat this as abandoned if it stretches out to 18 months without an update. We're at 10 months right now...
He doesn't engage with his audience at all, which I find really weird. I personally understand delays, and as a patron for like 1-2 months of his, I realized pretty quickly that engaging with his audience wasn't his thing. That alone for me is enough to shy away from a dev.
(Not to talk, as I have been avoiding F95's thread on the game I work on for a while now