Yes, the game is being remade. Arc said this was due to issues in the code that caused an overwhelming amount of bugs to show up with each update. But I don’t think it makes sense to conclude that this remake is going to be completely unrecognizable from the old version just based off of the content from the demo. While the game does take place on an island now, and Jessica and Emma’s roles have been tweaked, we know nothing about any of the other characters, locations, or story beats yet.
If the content update drops and it turns out that the other characters and locations are also changed, then yeah I think people would have a right to be upset. But I can’t really imagine that being the case because one, Arc has been open to feedback and said everything from the previous version would be in the new one. And two, if you’re remaking a free game that’s only funded by donations, I can’t imagine what the benefit would be to not use the existing characters/text/story/assets you spent years making and that you already know people liked.
I’m optimistic and expecting there won’t be too much else that we’ll have to get used to. But we’ll see what ends up happening when the content update drops.