Which, unfortunately, Amy herself ended up being the ultimate exemplar of, in a rather meta-appropriate and yet still depressing way--for me anyway.
Just so--I agree 100% with your assessment; that's my read as well. I think right now Okubo and team want to probably slip in the following characters before the end of the game's dlc support, in addition to Haohmaru: Aeon/Lizardman, Hilde, Hwang, Setsuka, and some combination of two from Li Long, Rock and Yun-Seong. I used to think that Hilde was less likely, at least until after all of the SE-SCIII regulars got re-introduced, but given things we've seen recently and the fact that I am thinking a season three is probably at least as likely as not, I'm no longer certain of that. We don't know for certain how predictive the colour scheme is. I think given we all expected Setsuka and many of us expected Hwang (whose name means 'Yellow'....which was included in the data "leak"), and we now have cherry blossom pink slot and a yellow slot...it probably does mean something.
And I gotta tell you, I know Nyte's going to have a strong reaction to this, but I think grey means Rock (aka 'Stone' from the same "leak"). I wouldn't have expected him, because I was certain Lizardman was on the pitch, until I saw that particular colour there--which is really noticeable in contrast to the bright colours of the other characters. If the other colours are predictive, then the flat grey certainly is as well. I do suppose there is an outside chance of grey being used for either Hilde or Lizardman after the fact, but I suspect its one of the three and I'm starting to feel more and more curious as to whether they would introduce Rock after giving him such short-shrift in the narrative. Well, it could be a while before we know. Anyway, if there is going to be a new character (and honestly, I doubt there is), it would certainly come in Season 3, with little to no chance for Season 2.
People aren't objecting to your construction as a matter of context, but rather the actual words spoken:
Kayane: I understand better ! Four characters and one is Haohmaru from Samurai Shodown!
M.O.: Haohmaru, yes.
K.: And three legacy characters.
M.O.: Maybe?
K : Or maybe a new one?
M.O.: long pause, hesitant You’ll see! Please wait!
First off, we don't know how long or how hesitant that pause was, which is definitely a "your mileage will vary" assessment of someone's intention from their pause. But even if the transcription captures his response perfectly, it still means nothing: all we know is that he was hesitant and non-commital. Also, his exact words have been translated, and that could make a world of difference in the meaning of one-word response.
Also, have you ever seen Kayane interview Okubo before? She carpet bombs him with question from every significant angle she would expect a hardcore player to inquire about, but because these interviews are always taking place --after-- a major reveal, he is necessarily cautious about going off script. So he responds where he can with regard to the content that is immediately incoming but otherwise weathers the other questions like an indulgent uncle responding to his favourite niece: "Maybe? [Look I want to tell you more, but you know I can't!]" In any event, looking at both the context and the literal wording there, all we can say is that all options clearly remain on the table, insofar as Okubo's level of commitment to anything is concerned.
Stepping aside for a moment from what I think is likely to happen (because i think there's room for considerable doubt regarding one or two characters at least), my ideal scenario would be the following: presuming there was a Season 3, and it too had four characters, I would want it to be composed of Haohmaru, Aeon/Lizardman, Hilde, Hwang, Li Long, Rock, Setsuka, and Yun-seong: that would be the entire SCIII:AE playable roster, plus Hilde, Azwel, Groh, Geralt, 2B, and Haohmaru. In other words, the best roster in the series history as judged by who is included. I think that's a much nicer and cleaner conclusion to rest on, in a fashion consistent with the tone of this game than some random new original character--whose just going to be dumb as shit, with some magical, ridiculously impractically shaped weapon and some sort of eye-jarring over the top wardrobe and corny dialogue. Ugh, enough of those guys: if that's the risk, give me anyone on the above list any day. But as I said above, I think at least a couple of those characters could be swapped out in lieu of another guest--and thus I suppose its at least possible (if less likely) that they would also drop one or two classic characters for a new original, same as they might for another guest.
