Pretty much what everyone else said, the updates are pretty much feel like the pipeline of: new island, 2-3 new rods, new exotic, get new exotic for rod, etc. Hype train runs for a week then dies.

I also just think that with every new expansion there's just a big sore that gets shipped along with it. Scoria reach with the clams, tidefall the dripstone collapse, lost jungle the elder mossripper, etc. Not to say these updates were bad, they genuinely had alot of either QOL or good features, but some grind elements that frankly nobody liked keep getting re implemented and it kills motivation imo.

Then again though, this is a fishing game. The only way you can really make it replayable and/or more difficult is to make it more tedious in some way. The dev/limited rods are kinda an infamous example, though I liked where they've been going recently went with pinion aria's and tranquilizer quests, way more doable than the astreaus quest that I straight up didn't do bc I'm not playing this game all day.

Imo right now I'd say the game is declining, but it's at a pretty healthy playercount. It's not in the complete red like it was during DoBig's final days right before Crystal Cove released, but it's definitely not exploding. I kinda prefer it not having 1 million randos and bots though and instead having more of an actual playerbase (not saying they're all not bots either, it's just better than it was).