Just checked out the latest build after not touching this game for a while. Holy shit it looks beautiful. I love that they moved to UE5, the lighting indoors is amazing. It really adds so much depth to the characters. The amount of new animations is fucking unreal and as always they're absolutely amazing. Crazy fucking hot.
I'm just still wondering if making the whole RPG side of it is a good idea.
I think they desperately need to focus on the gameplay side of things. If it's just a showcase for sex scenes then well, you watch em once and it's over, no incentive to play further really. There needs to be some sort of context around the sex scenes. Every time I reinstall this I play it for like 10-15 min then stop. Not that they could necessarily pull it off.
That being said the kind of gameplay they try to implement is going to have a major impact on whether it is successful. I haven't been following development but it seems like they've inexplicably chosen the generic dude as the player character instead of the bird girl whose flight is the only interesting gameplay feature the title's ever had. Incorporate some stamina mechanics and updrafts and you could make something pretty quick. The grappling hook needs work, it feels incredibly stiff and limited compared to those present in some other games with actual physics.
Judging based on the combat range, perhaps they simply lack the imagination to design around more freeform movement. Seems like they're going for a sort of off-brand soulslike combat which I have mixed feelings about. If it's polished up dramatically, it could be fun, but even with their budget they can't compete with the development power of actual AAA dev, so trying to create a direct competitor in the style of other AAA games is kind an exercise in futility. They need to find their own gameplay niche. The direction I'd recommend is a sandbox style social sim (due to the excellent ratio of dev resources to game length potential) with whatever combat/traversal they have in mind built around that as a core. Feel like the social elements could add a lot to the context for the sex scenes, but that's my own bias talking and is definitely not going to happen.