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I mean, little buddy exists... So there's that... Also, they are one of the only species who can make ink, they are sentient, and they would make for very interesting gameplay.
There's one problem with that: the fact that they can just go into water.
Water is supposed to be a "No-player zone". Playable Salmonids would have gameplay differences, which will make too many players switch to Salmonids and immediately forget about playing as an Inkling or Octoling entirely.
There's a reason why all gameplay differences are tied to gear and weapons and not to the character you play as.
However, having Salmonids as NPCs that walk around in the hub would be a thing that is actually something I can see happening.
Lore reason why that wouldn't work: The developers have stated that the salmonoids have such a different culture and way of life from the cephalopods, there's no way they could integrate. The salmonoids have enough intelligence to interact through means of treatys like the one with the octarians, but they cannot integrate the way you propose. Sorry for nerding all over this post from last month.
There could perhaps be an alternate gamemode or something where a salmonid is playable, maybe even a spinoff game? But yeah I don't think they'd work in the base game.
Make the chao garden and its minigames from sonic adventure 2 but just replace the chaos with smallfry LOL