Not quite sure what you just said.
No one is out of the loop, all of our progress report posts and changelog posts are free to read.
We announced like 2 years ago we would not be releasing new free builds on Itch.
Eventually, our new episode 1 will be released on here for free as the new demo.
But if you want to play the most recent builds, you would need to be a paid Patron.
This is so we get funding to keep making the game as it is our jobs.