Honestly I do not subscribe to the idea that the devs simply "ran" with the money (because why would you - years later - post something about an upcoming update). I think the von Funk's (the devs) genuinely tried to make a great game, but their vision of what it should be simply did not align with that the most people (including me) thought it was going to be.

I'd be genuinely happy for them if an update gets released, people love it and maybe they get more attention once again for their work, but you'll never know when or if this is going to happen.

Also as far as I know (haven't tested it) there's a mod out there to return to the more alpha-ish progression system instead of the one found in the steam release (what I believe most people - including me - did not like about the steam version).

If you want to get more into the details of what happened around this game I can highly recommend this YouTube video on the subject.