Eh I don't know it could happen but I really hope that's not the case and that Geno is in. I feel like with how many fan requests have been fulfilled Geno isn't entirely out there anymore and Sakurai has been wanting the dude since Brawl if he could make Banjo-Kazooie happen and he's from a rival company I feel like they could get Geno.
Plus Square and Nintendo haven't been on this good of terms since the SNES era. Geno could just solidify that.
I don't want to get my hopes up (I'm not a Geno fan, but a lot of my friends are and all of this teasing is
killing them), but...
- Sakurai has stated before that he's a fan of Geno and would love to see him in the game, even going as far as to have planned for him to have been in Brawl.
- Geno's Mii Costume in 4 got a Newcomer splash page (old news, but still relevant).
- I think it's fair to say that Joker getting into Smash was largely in thanks to Sakurai being such a huge fan of the Persona games. I really think his biases do matter.
- Banjo and Kazooie are characters that haven't had a proper game in over a decade, and haven't touched a Nintendo console in nearly two. Their relevance was non-existent, yet they got in because the fanbase was vocal enough.
- He stated specifically that the next batch of DLC fighters will provide more opportunities to delight fans.
- I have zero doubt that the Sans Mii Costume has already broken some kind of Mii Costume record in terms of sales by now. Sakurai said straight up that they included Undertale representation because of high fan demand despite being such a niche property (and, hey, it really paid off...I'm not even an Undertale fan, but it cannot be understated just
how many doors Sans has opened for this roster moving forward).
- Oh, and Geno's Mii Costume is still nowhere to be seen.
If Sakurai is seeing all of the Sans memes and pleas for Undertale in Smash, there is no way he hasn't seen the passionate outcry for Geno, a character that he is already a huge fan of himself. It's exactly because of Joker, Banjo, and Sans's inclusions in the game that I think Geno is a shoe-in at some point.
Again, I personally have no stakes in this race, but aside from Banjo, Ridley, and the poor Isaac fans, Geno fans seem to have been asking and waiting patiently the longest. If nothing else, I'd love to see him get in just to satisfy that group.