On Wednesday, Nintendo announced the next Star Fox game with approximately, oh, five minutes of lead time. Star Fox (2026) will be released June 25 for Nintendo Switch 2, and is based on Star Fox 64, Fox McCloud’s 1997 showing on Nintendo 64. It is but one of many remakes (or reimaginations, or recreations, or re-whatevers) of Star Fox 64. By my count, on technicalities at least, this is the fifth time we’re getting a version of this game — not counting its addition to the Nintendo Classics library.
1
Star Fox (1993, SNES)
The original Star Fox kicked off the series in 1993 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. On-rails shooter. Ground-breaking graphics for its era. Sparked a new franchise about a space pilot fox and his various animal friends. All things considered, a pretty successful game!
2
Star Fox 64 (1997, N64)
Star Fox 2, a follow-up to the original Star Fox, was reportedly mostly finished before Nintendo canned it, largely due to advanced graphical capabilities from competitors like the then-new PlayStation 1. Instead, Nintendo opted to reboot the original with better graphics for the N64. Star Fox 64 was the definitive version of the game, and is still widely considered one of the best N64 games of all time.
3
Star Fox 64 3D (2011, 3DS)
In 2011, Nintendo released Star Fox again, this time as a port on the 3DS. This re-release hewed closely to the N64 version, effectively a one-to-one recreation, albeit with a major graphical overhaul and other modernizations. The 3D features impressed critics at the time. The “half-baked,” to quote IGN, multiplayer mode did not.
4
Star Fox Zero (2016, Wii U)
A whole five years later, Nintendo teamed up with PlatinumGames — best-known at the time for Bayonetta, Vanquish, and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance — for Star Fox Zero. A confused entry, Star Fox Zero was positioned as a bit of a series reboot, borrowing story elements from Star Fox/Star Fox 64/Star Fox 64 3D but adding new gameplay elements in the form of ham-fisted Wii U features. It was effectively a misfire of a tech demo for Nintendo’s most maligned modern console. Polygon described it at the time as a “not … terrible-looking game” that “feels like every muddled, unsuccessful experiment with the Wii U was stuffed into a single game.” Rare miss for PlatinumGames.
Star Fox Zero channels everything bad about Wii U game design
Bad motion controls and boring missions kill Star Fox Zero’s fun
5
Star Fox (2026) (2026, Switch 2)
And that brings us to now. Following a decade on the bench, Nintendo is officially bringing Fox back (and so soon after his cameo in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie). Beyond the 4K graphical upgrade and legitimately nightmare-inducing new character models, Star Fox (2026) will feature co-op gameplay and a 4v4 multiplayer mode. Otherwise, it looks a whole lot like Star Fox 64. Again. You can read all about it here:
