This biggest concern is theyve stalled in progress for two years. The MLM scam guy making a game tailored specifically for his interests with zero people who can tell him no is a problem for sure but not necessarily game destroying. At the least, everyone's known this going in for years now.
What has changed is the game starting Alpha 1 in Spring 2020, having public-facing Alpha 1 in Summer 2021 and it now being Summer 2023 with zero communication regarding an estimated timeframe for Alpha 2. The people I know with A1 access have even said the intermittent test weekends for contained scenarios/environments have been dark for a long time. Parts of the community including some of the youtube shillers are turning on the game because it's taken so long. The UE5 uplift buys them a 6 month delay...where the fuck has the rest of the time gone? Sure, you get some Covid buffer too. We're years past that now
The past mantra from the days when Valve and Blizzard were actually good is "delays are fine as long as the game is good when it comes out." That was 20 fucking years ago. It isn't the case anymore. Now delays mean the developers are incompetent and it will be shit when it comes out, just slightly more polished shit, as can be seen by the compilation of apology notes after shit releases recently. Intrepid Studios has been carrying 100+ employees at California rates for over 3 years now. The cosmetic packs can only go so far before payroll starts burning through the MLM money in Sharif's pockets
They need to get a playable Alpha server out in the first half of 2024. Announce it in a couple months, then push it back to Summer '24 around the turn of the year if you have to. Then you can piecemeal it with a low level cap, limited map and promises of updated clients to stretch it out further but the core game and combat need to be there with quality gameplay or this is going to turn into Fantasy Star Citizen in the minds of MMO fans.