I think Hello Games is doing something big behind the scenes. Last Expedition was the worst one so far imo, it was the first one to have ZERO narrative of any kind, 100% just chores and fetch quests. PC received an Experimental update weeks ago that Console still hasn't received. And this next update represents part 4 out of 4 of the Void Mother narrative, the grand finale.

All of that makes me feel like a lot of the core team is working on something else.

So I don't have a direct answer to your question, but I will say, to me, it's another indication that something huge is on the way.