Beat me to the punch, I was going to bring up a thread asking for some more details--I'd tune into the devstreams but it's been about three years now since I've had a connection that'll support Twitch (I know, I know, jokes about third world yadda yadda this is the best we can do here, honestly), and seeing some feedback compiled by an authority rather than guesswork cobbled together by the community would be quite nice.

Precisely why I made the video over a month ago when I did. One of the current clouds hanging over the game. 

It should be stressed that the "open world trailor" released prior to the launch of the founding does explain the intentions for the open world system. Unfortunately we still have people asking "when will the open world stuff come" - It's already here. The star map, the navigation and choice in planet - to the best of my knowledge is the open world system. that isn't to say what we are doing isn't getting expanded with more choice etc. But what we have as a system is what it is.

Great care needs to be taken with the advertising now to not oversell what it is. 

The investigation overhaul I think is set out in 2 months time in September - it's the same thing as the grand investigation as far as I know although the grand investigations might be referring to the campaign? Not sure. Either way I don't think anything has actively been removed. But.. That's not to say they are the "open world content" that some people might be expecting. Time will tell what they actually include but I don't think it was ever neocores intention to make the game as "open" as some players have come to expect - non linear would have been a better choice of words. 

Hope that helps, more or less all I know. 

New season = opening a new subsector / tier etc of content - So new enemies, relics, weapons etc but also a story line and new missions relating to that. (which is what you are referring to me thinks) -

Would perhaps be useful clarification for a staff member to distinguish between a normal investigation, a grand investigation and single player campaign - although i'm fairly consident they are seperate things. Grand investigations are just the story tied in with a new season's content. 

Calm yourself young one, stress leads to the dark side. I can't see anything that was intended for the product that has changed in anyway - everything you have described is still being discussed openly by them in. In-fact I think every mention of the word season from 2015-2017 has remained pretty much a constant pre recorded script very little variation :D - imagine they just aren't marketing the term grand investigation at present and instead referring to it as part of a season. I'll do some digging though.

Calm thyself. Neocore is actually a halfway capable crew, so they're already miles ahead of the crew behind EC. Note how our update came with balance changes and things relevant to the community, not a load of cash shop cosmetics and excuses about how the scope of the game was "too large" and "needed time to be scaled back".

i'd put a told you so meme here but for the life of me I can't find a good one xD at least we can sleep easy again. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHBB3WWhxr4

To be fair I read the OP and skimmed, dropping some words of calm. I'm back on the "what is that sleep thing" bus again, now that I'm caffinated I might be able to respond more thoughtfully. :P