Today’s Starfox 2026 announcement confirms what many suspected after the ill-fated Wii U title Starfox Zero: Nintendo STILL hasn’t been able to make a Starfox game as good as Starfox 64 was 30 years later.

I’m gonna take you back in time to Christmas Day 1997. At the time, Nintendo 64 games went for $60-$70 which meant for most middle-class families, you were only guaranteed to get a new game on Christmas or your birthday. That year, we actually got a promotional VHS in the mail from Nintendo ahead of the game’s release. I still have that promotional VHS actually. What made Starfox 64 so iconic was actually the piece of tech introduced with it that has since become an industry stable: The Rumble Pak. You wanna know why your Playstation or Xbox controller vibrates, it’s because Nintendo made the Rumble Pak.

Anyways when you booted up Starfox 64, you got this opening video:

Easily one of the most iconic openings of the early 3D console era.

For those who might not know, Starfox 64–along with Starfox Zero and Starfox 2026–is a remake of the original SNES Starfox game. Released back in 1993, one could say the original SNES version was the spiritual successor to Nintendo’s very first arcade game Radar Scope. It was memorable though it was also constrained by the hardware it was made for.

Then Starfox 64 drops in 1997.

It was, to put it mildly one of the best-selling Nintendo 64 games ever done. Branching routes and Medal Hunting added hours of replay value. On a related note, which version of Venom and the ending you got was decided by which route you took. This is to say nothing of 4-player Split Screen VS Matches. I’ll put it like this: If you can get Medals in the Campaign’s Expert difficulty, you shouldn’t be losing VS. Matches to anyone who hasn’t.

All that said. Nintendo has released subsequent Starfox games since SF64. The Gamecube’s Starfox Adventures showed Nintendo’s willingness to move the series in a new direction. Me personally, I never played it because I felt it changed too much from what worked with SF64. I did see why I it was so well liked by many though. The followup game Starfox Assault was a direct sequel to Stafox Adventures but brought players back to the series’ roots in terms of overall gameplay. The return of 4-Player VS. Matches was awesome and more so given Starfox Assault introduced the ability to switch vehicles or move on foot on the fly, opening new strategies to plan for or exploit.

As mentioned earlier, the Wii U’s Starfox Zero was the second remake of the original Starfox game. In short, until today it made people think it prettymuch killed the series. Why? Because no new Starfox game had been released since. THAT’S how bad that game was. I played it and returned it the next day so yes I’d know personally. Coincidentally, Peppy’s original Englis voice actor died in 2020 from COVID-19. To people who loved his voicework in the series, it felt emblematic of the series that never got a game on the Switch 1. I’m not gonna bother talking about the Nintendo DS title Starfox Command though for me it was a mixed bag of kittens. Mostly due to the hardware it was made for. Same with the 3DS port of Starfox 64 (yes, the 3DS got a port of SF64).

I’ve played every game in the series as you can see. Today’s announcement confirms what everyone suspected about Fox’s appearance in the Super Mario Galaxy Movie: It was to be a tie-in to the release of Starfox 2026. I’ll put it like this: Starfox 2026 is not for people familiar with Starfox 64 or the other versions of the game. It’s for people unfamiliar with the series. Me personally, there isn’t enough new content in the game to justify getting it. More so as someone who played 3 other versions of this game. I mean I get it, weather or not there will be followup Starfox games depends on this game doing well commercially. I don’t see this game doing well commercially. More so given it’s largely “been there, done that” and anyone with a Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pak Subscription can play Starfox 64 on the Switch 1 or Switch 2.

This announcement out of nowhere 8 weeks ahead of the game’s release tells me Nintendo is looking for a quick cash grab. We’ll see.

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