oh? did something happen to u irl? or some issues to take a break?
They had a triple threat of:
- Scale/Feature creep (update supposedly double the size of previous ones) - classic case with indie (and sometimes even AAA) devs where the amount of work becomes hard to both oversee/manage and actually do. One of the common reasons for abandoned projects.
- Childbirth - First it creates a pause which is already threatening due to indie devs usually having a fragile work ethic when it comes to delivering regular updates, especially when the project becomes more complex or is in an uninteresting change. It also means both devs (parents) operate on very little sleep (max two hours straight) for years. Sleeplessness is one of the rougher things to have in creative fields.
- COVID - again, messing up the everyday rhythm and demands a new one to be created/modified. It is threatening due to aforementioned fragile work ethic, but COVID and the lockdowns/adjustments that came with it had a strong effect in general on people's existence. Some found it much easier to get done with their tasks, some struggled even if in theory they had more time and flexibility. COVID break/slowdown doomed or killed the pace for a number of projects.
- BONUS: The psychological struggle to continue working on something you're ashamed of (assuming they are ashamed this update has taken 4x as long as previous ones).
Now whilst all these reasons are understandable, they're still taking Patreon money and proof of the pudding is in the eating. At some point you need to deliver something more than excuses, be they reasonable or not.
I have sympathy for the devs and I don't expect this to be the best update ever just because it took so long. But if they don't get their work pace back in order within the next two patches (after this) then I foresee this project fizzling out as many others before and after it.