It honestly seems a bit high effort for an april fools' joke.
Especially as there's no over the top claims, or any other silly business that are giveaways, like you usually see in these things when they're jokes.
If they were going to do this as a joke they would probably have focused on some of the goofy old models, not released a proper trailer like this.
You'd have thought so - this looks and feels like a genuine release trailer, and I'm sure GW were more light-hearted in a lot of previous April Fools' videos.
Plus, squats are such a popular, nostalgic fanfavorite, that using them for a cheap joke seems reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally stupid marketing-wise. I mean, they have been discontinued what 30 years ago? Yet the internet still remembers them and wants em back? That's some great persistence...
If it is a joke, GW will have a lot of angry Squat fans on their hands because it would essentially be an insult to those who have devoted their existence to giving Squats a place in 40K in their own time, with fan-made rules, conversions e.t.c., and surely, as a company, GW realise that insulting your fanbase is not a good idea?
And as you say, the fact that Squats have retained a consistent cult status in 40K, like Sisters of Battle did for a long time when their models and rules were largely forgotten about, plus the popularity of their AoS cousin, the Kharadron (both as their AoS selves and as Squat conversions), shows that there is enough of a fanbase to make developing them as a new faction profitable.
Come on GW, I know you've been great at making balls-ups out of key opportunities for a long while, but you restored some of my faith in you with the Parasite of Mortrex. Do not fail me now!
At "worst" I'd expect them to only release squats as a kill-team or something equally minor, just to test the waters and see if people actually end up liking them before fully supporting them again.
I would only settle for a full-on faction, as they did with Genestealer Cults. Just having a Squat Kill-Team would make it look half-baked, as it did just including that Bounty Hunter for Necromunda. To convince me they really care, it's a full faction or nothing!
it could easily be an April Fools.
OR it could be serious and GW is putting it up today so we think it's a joke, but it's true, and that's the joke.
Or this could be the joke, as someone on Facebook wittily put it:
