The characters are supposed to be "upgraded and better than ever!", but it's all a facade.
Instead, they were inadvertently downgraded, making their relationships between one another unhealthy and even toxic.
The game still functions as it did before, with a few minor changes. Prismarine is still the antagonist, using the unused assets of Golden and KALAMITY to do their bidding, but claims to be "using them to point out the characters' flaws and destroy them from the inside out."
Still very DDLC-esque, but with a few changes regarding how the story and gameplay goes.