Most of the big devs used to do it like that when they started. The releases were always either monthly or in some cases even weekly, but they became slower and slower with time when they realized that people will give them money anyway.This release has most likely been finished since a few weeks. What NLT understands but most other developers in the genre misses, is that it is much better to plan smaller releases that are delivered on time than having these huge releases that are delayed over and over again. I haven't looked at their Patreon page, but my advice to most of the devs here is to have a clear plan early on and not starting to make your life difficult by having polls for your patrons where they all of a sudden are allowed to decide in what direction the story should go.
Honestly NLT should get more praise for not doing the same thing and keeping his schedule the same.