If they didn’t want to over hype or give false hope on development for the game, maybe they shouldn’t have hyped the game off the back of their first game more than 6 years too early, idiotic choice imo.
Hey, just in case you’re unaware, they kickstarted the original Hollow Knight, and one of the stretch goals (which was met) was a second playable character (Hornet) as a DLC that backers would get for free. While they were making that DLC, the scope just expanded to the point of it being an entire standalone game (Silksong). They had to communicate to backers that they were forestalling the promised DLC in favor of a sequel; the cat would have been out of the bag then whether they wanted it to be or not. Better for them to announce the sequel publicly at the same time, rather than have it leak via their Kickstarter update.
It’s all ‘pasta’ in my house. Including the spaghetti.