The original pitch was that it was still its own separate continuity, but would actually be based on the game canon unlike previous comics; the world of IDW would be identical to the games up until the end of Forces, where the comic picks up and starts doing its own thing in a separate direction from wherever the games continue.
When Frontiers released, a couple of throwaway lines were included referencing IDW characters, cementing them as canon... but unclear about the stories themselves. After all, Sticks was also referenced, but there's no way for Boom to have been canon, so was it possible that it merely canonized the characters as also existing in the game world, separate from whatever antics they got into in the comic world? Iizuka later stated that he "wanted to" consolidate the continuities into one canon instead of having it all splintered like in the 90s/2000s, but the future tense still implied it wasn't quite there yet.
Finally, more recently, it's been confirmed that the comics are now officially canon to the games, though since nothing's really been released since then except for games that take place before the comics started (Shadow gens, Superstars), we've yet to see much of an impact from the decision so far. On the other side of that, I think I heard rumblings that Ian had mentioned a while ago that since the games (post-Forces) are likewise now canon in the comics, there'll be a timeskip to after Frontiers "at some point in the future", but don't quote me on that.
tl;dr they changed their mind multiple times, but after much ambiguity the games and IDW comics are now fully canon to each other, results yet to be seen
