In order to explain why Geno could be this E3 2020 reveal, we need to establish a timeline. Thankfully,
ForsakenM
made
a post back in early December last year that discusses exactly that. I would highly encourage you to read it over if you haven't already, since it's an amazing read all on it's own. I will be using it's information as reference for certain parts of this section, though most of this will be my own.
So let's begin by listing what we know for sure:
- The Fighter Pass selection was finalized in early November of 2018. This was also when the Joker trailer shown at TGAs began production.
- Hero, codenamed "Brave", already had data within the game at launch, about 6 months before his official reveal at E3 and 7 1/2 months before his release.
- By the time June 11th 2019 (E3 2019) came around, both Hero and Banjo were in a finished enough state to show gameplay for in their trailers. Hero was only over one month away from release, whereas Banjo was around two to three months away from release.
- The Hero presentation was most likely recorded about one month prior to it going live in late July, given comments Sakurai made during the Terry presentation.
- The Banjo presentation was recorded only a couple of days after the Hero presentation, as Sakurai mentioned in the Banjo presentation itself.
- More DLC was announced during the September 4th Direct.
- The Terry presentation was recorded one month before it went live on the 6th of November, so around early October.
- The Byleth presentation was recorded sometime in November, two months before their presentation went live, meaning that the character was in a complete enough state around that time.
- During the Byleth presentation, Fighter Pass Vol.2 was officially revealed. Sakurai mentioned that all of the characters for this pass have already been decided on.
Alright, now that we've laid out the facts, let's start building our timeline.
So the Fighter Pass was finalized back in early November, keyword being "finalized", meaning it began being decided upon some time before that. If I had to guess, I'd say it was some time around E3 2018 (when Ridley was revealed) or August 2018 (when King K. Rool was revealed), which would be around 9 months before Joker was released in April. I think that the immensely positive response to these characters may have been enough to lead them to considering doing the Fighter Pass to begin with.
Hero was first known about since at least early December, which is about 7 months before his release, which means he most likely began development some time in October 2018. This would line up with the rumors heard about a SquareEnix character coming to the game that Vegemite was talking about. Banjo has been rumored since around April 2019. Combined with his release in early September, it's possible that he's been in development since around December 2018 to January 2019. Terry was dropped in November 2019, which could date him back to around February 2019, and Byleth is set for release on the 28th, which puts them around May 2019.
So what about Vol.2? Well, I believe that Vol.2 was decided upon some time between these two timeframes:
- January 2019, after Joker's reveal and the sales figures started rolling in, as
ForsakenM
suggested in his post. This would make a lot of sense since seeing all that money come in from people preordering the Fighter Pass would certainly entice Nintendo to ask for more fighters to be made.
- Some time before E3, around May. I personally think this may be the more likely date since it would allow them to see standalone purchases figures for Joker's Challenger Pack alongside Fighter Pass Preorders, which would allow them to better gauge whether more DLC would be profitable enough to consider.
Now we don't know for sure when Vol.2 was finalized, but what we do know is that it would've had to have been decided some time before November 2019, because the Byleth presentation was recorded then and Sakurai said as much himself. If this new Fighter Pass is anything like the other one in terms of development, I think it may have been finalized as early as September when they first announced more DLC is coming. As mentioned earlier, the first Fighter Pass was finalized back in early November, right after it was revealed, so I think we may be seeing that happening again here.
". Ooooooh baby... what if going along this line of thought, the grand finale, the very last fighter to make it into Ultimate, in honor to the late Mr. Satoru Iwata... we got one character that has also been among those many fan requested characters, however, more closely to a near and dear series of whom's fate is yet unknown. A character that has already appeared in Smash before, but throughout Ultimate has been absent. A snarky, devious naughty boy, whom by machinations of fate was given the devices for him to further his own plans and achieve near immortality. Yes, this naughty boy "Means Business".
