This went from a cool concept of "people liked Black Flag let's spin off of that" through years of development hell to whatever this is. Sucks, coulda been cool.
Honestly, I hope for the best for them. What the people developing this game must have been put through, if the rumors are to be believed, is just inexcusable.
Yes, basically. That article and the Kotaku article it links seem to summarize it well. Going through so many instances of thinking you are to close to the finish line, only for most of your work being rendered pointless in a day, and having to go back to square one... It must have been sisyphean.
Not to mention that those issues don't necessarily get transmitted to the customer, so you end with reactions of the "Eight years for this? What were they doing?" type.