They didn’t go backward. There was a Tech Preview released last year. If you look closely, it was labeled by VMware as 22H2 Tech Preview. This preview was an advance look at what was released as Fusion 13. The current 2023 Tech Preview is based on Fusion 13 and is a preview of what will becoming up in the next version of Fusion coming this fall. Athen enhancements in the 2023 Tech Preview include more complete VMware Tools support for Windows 11 ARM.

The bad thing about the Internet is that information rarely disappears, leading to a lot of obsolete information being available in web searches.

The 2023 Tech Preview will install on Ventura. People have gotten it to work on the Sonoma betas, and I suspect it will work on Monterey as well.

I suspect that Ventura will require the Fusion version to be released this fall. Usually VMware requires a new version to support new macOS major version. However, VMware has said that the next release will be a free upgrade for those currently running Fusion 13.