People are overlooking the fact they split a single expansion (The Worldsoul Saga) into 3. Haranir were meant to be in the last patch of said expansion, so getting them in Midnight is actually faster than originally planned.
“No, it’s a trilogy, that means they didn’t get sidelined. Yeah, they were supposed to have a bigger role in TWW because they are an underground race and that was the underground expansion. Yes rootlands was scrapped and now they have a different zone grafted on elsewhere, but they decided halfway through development that it’s a trilogy so you can’t say these things anymore!”
They had no indication they were going to be playable this expansion, we all just assumed they would be like a lot of other races we were introduced to. Considering their story stretches into midnight and we only did a few things with them during Liberation, I hardly doubt it was enough to say “hey come join us we’re friendly” and make it a playable race.
They weren’t side lined though. They were gonna be in war within and then Dip. Instead, it was confirmed they will play a bigger role in midnight and last titan. So we’re getting MORE content, not less.