Or the Wild Life devs are simply taking their time with desigining all aspects of the game. Thats not an easy task and you have to think about so many things and how they will interact and affect each other. Out the top of my head based on what I know I can think of: crafting, loot, quest, inventory, ai, npc behaviour, how they react to player actions and interact with eachother, combat, weapons, clothes, other item types like food, crafting materials and quest items, character progression, character customization, survival mechanics, movement and the environment and how to make both work well with eachother, the actual world design, environment mechanics, weather, day night cycle and what it means to gameplay, biomes and their effect on survival, the setting, the factions, individual characters and npcs, monsters and critters, the story, the sex system, how the sex system is embedded into the general gameplay, how it affects character/story progression and influences relations with the npcs, how those relations play out and affect the story and gameplay, and probably many more.
I know its hard to see from down here what they are actually trying to do but believe me im almost certain all the things I mentioned are on their list.