While I agree with you, I'm remaining cautiously optimistic. And also very confused because of the "last race we'll be adding" statement (along the lines of, at least).
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It means the leak was real, we will get Vieras and a Lion race. The leak never talked about those races being gender locked.
I AM SHOOKETH
So we know that Tokyo Fanfest is late March. We also know that part 2 of the 4.5 MSQ is in late March (right?). Assuming the Hrothgar are the eighth race, do you think they'll make an appearance in part 2 of the MSQ? Possibly at the very end of it?
While we had seen what Au Ra looked like long before 2.55, Yugiri didn't reveal her face until the very end of the 2.55 story.
I would love for both to have both genders, and I really hope the labeling is an indication of that. But that would mean two full races male and female and that's a ton of work. I'd love if SE did this, but also knowing them it might not be likely. It also still doesn't add up with the weird way Yoshida has been dodging the issue of male viera either. There's less of a reason to not show them if there's going to be 2 full blown male+female races.
We will see. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing these Hrothgar however.
Just as a heads-up: from the top comment on the Reddit thread, datamining confirms that the text exists, but it's only in the French localization files (not English, German, or Japanese) and has been there for some time. It may have been added at a much earlier point, and development could have shifted radically in the meantime. Take it all with a healthy dose of salt (however you want to interpret that).