Fox McCloud is back. A new Star Fox game for Nintendo Switch 2 was announced alongside news that the character appears in the upcoming Super Mario Galaxy movie, and Nintendo fans lost their minds. Rightfully so, in some ways. Star Fox has been dormant since the divisive Star Fox Zero in 2016, and a full decade without a franchise entry is a long time.
But here's the thing: the excitement around Star Fox's return is starting to ask a louder question than Nintendo probably wants to answer.
The "grand new idea" excuse just lost its teeth
For years, Nintendo's unofficial policy on dormant franchises has been something like: we'll bring it back when we have a genuinely new idea for it. Shigeru Miyamoto himself applied this logic to both Metroid (which skipped the N64 entirely) and Star Fox (which sat out the Wii generation). Takaya Imamura, the designer behind the character art in both Star Fox and F-Zero, echoed the same line in 2021 when asked about F-Zero's long silence, saying the franchise needs a "grand new idea" to justify a return.
The new Star Fox game for Switch 2 is, by all available evidence, a remake of Star Fox 64. Cleaner visuals, more detailed cinematics, some challenge levels, optional mouse controls. That's it. There's no radical reinvention here, no genre pivot, no new mechanic that reframes what Star Fox can be.
Every Star Fox release since 64 at least tried something different. Adventures put Fox on foot. Assault mixed ground combat with Arwing sequences. Command layered in touch controls and strategy games elements. Zero went all-in on the GamePad's dual-screen setup, for better or worse. The Switch 2 entry, based on what Nintendo has shown, doesn't attempt any of that.
So the "new idea" rationale? It's gone. Nintendo is making a Star Fox game that offers nostalgia and polish, and that's a perfectly valid reason to make a game. But it means the same logic should apply to everything else sitting in the vault.
The franchises fans are actually waiting for
The list of Nintendo properties that haven't seen a mainline entry in years is long enough to be genuinely embarrassing:
- F-Zero: Last entry was F-Zero Climax in 2004. The surprise release of F-Zero 99 in 2023 was a clever online experiment, but not a new game.
- Golden Sun: Nothing since Dark Dawn in 2010.
- Earthbound / Mother: No new entry since Mother 3 in 2006, which still hasn't received an official Western release.
- Kid Icarus: Uprising came out in 2012 and remains stranded on 3DS.
- Punch-Out: Last seen in 2009 on Wii.
- Chibi-Robo, Wave Race, Pilotwings, Sin and Punishment, Advance Wars, Elite Beat Agents: All effectively on ice.
Advance Wars at least got a remake in 2023, but original entries for most of these franchises feel increasingly unlikely the longer Nintendo stays silent.
F-Zero 99 was a free Nintendo Switch Online title that shut down in March 2025, which means there is currently no way to play an F-Zero game on modern Nintendo hardware.
Why Star Fox specifically got the call
The most honest answer is probably Miyamoto's personal investment in the franchise. Imamura has pointed to this directly, noting that Mario Kart fills Nintendo's racing slot and leaves F-Zero without a commercial argument. Star Fox doesn't compete with any of Nintendo's tentpole franchises the same way, and Miyamoto's attachment to Fox McCloud has always been visible.
There's also a commercial reality here. Nintendo is launching Switch 2, and Star Fox carries name recognition that a lot of the dormant franchises simply don't have with younger players. A Star Fox 64 remake targets both longtime fans and anyone who missed the original, which is a safer bet than launching something like a new Wave Race to an audience that might not know what it is.
That's understandable from a business perspective. It doesn't make it less frustrating.
What a back-to-basics approach could actually look like
The argument Nintendo has implicitly made with this Star Fox reveal is that a well-made revival, even without innovation, is worth doing. If that's true for Star Fox, it's true for F-Zero. A high-fidelity F-Zero game with modern visuals, online multiplayer, and a full track roster doesn't need to reinvent the franchise. It just needs to exist.
The same goes for a new Golden Sun, a proper Punch-Out sequel, or even a Kid Icarus port that isn't locked to discontinued hardware. These don't need gimmicks. They need attention.
Nintendo has shown with Star Fox that it's willing to revisit legacy IP when the motivation is there. The question fans are asking now is what it actually takes to get on that list, and whether their favorites will ever make the cut. If you want to keep up with how other games are handling franchise revivals and long-running series, our gaming guides hub is worth bookmarking for ongoing coverage.
Source: GameSpot
