Pretty much. the skeleton is still there, they just didn't model those areas, it's not rocket science, but a lot of people will still think of it as a nail in the coffin.
People out there still unironically thinking Brawlhalla deconfirms him like 2 years later LOL
On a more positive note, I did some thinking about Ubisoft's silence and not even giving Rayman birthday messages. It might be a stretch but hear me out on this theory I formulated. What if they're waiting for a Smash reveal as an oportunity to promote Rayman to full capacity. First you had Ubisoft not shutting up about wanting Rayman in until earlier this year with the bot and Twitter and all that and some interesting trademarks and the survey with the removed question then... nothing... like at all...
Sound familiar? Suda51 and Travis (at least just the silence part). Suda being very open to having Travis in the game and insisted to Sakurai on it, and all this for years, then like a month ago all he has to say about Travis in Smash is "no comment" and now Travis is in Smash... as a costume, granted, but the possible NDA would apply either way.
So what if Ubisoft just doesn't want to bring up Rayman at all, but like, on purpose? They can still make Rayman stuff while he's being worked on in Smash but what if they just wanted for Smash to be the start of something special? He's fresh in people's minds from being playable in the biggest crossover ever, and that's the right time to start revealing new Rayman content, it's kind of genius... like, it sucks for us at this moment but if we put that in retrospect after it happened it'd make a lot of sense.
With this theory in mind I think the best pass placement for Rayman would be either CP8 or CP9, so soon as possible so Ubisoft can start unveiling.