Nintendo telegraphed this one. Fox McCloud’s otherwise inexplicable cameo in the recently released Super Mario Galaxy movie was a signal, not a coincidence. A new Star Fox was coming. What nobody quite expected was that “new” would mean a remake of a 29-year-old game.
The confirmed Switch 2 title is a remake of Lylat Wars — released as Star Fox 64 in North America, and known in Europe by its original name. The level layouts are identical to the 1997 original. The on-rails structure is intact. The branching path system that takes you through different planets depending on your performance is unchanged. What’s new is everything visual — completely redesigned character models for Fox, Slippy, Peppy, and Falco, newly voiced dialogue, and modern graphics that, according to early footage, look considerably better than anything the series has produced before.
The response has been mixed, and the mixed response is understandable.
The Case Against
Star Fox Zero launched on the Wii U in 2016 and was the series at its most compromised — mandatory gyro controls, a split-screen presentation that divided attention between the TV and the GamePad, and a design that felt like it was solving problems nobody had. It was an attempt at innovation that didn’t work. The reasonable expectation after a decade of silence was that Nintendo would respond by making something genuinely new — a Star Fox with full freedom of movement, a longer campaign, a story with ambition. A game that asked what the series could be in 2026, not what it was in 1997.
Instead they’ve remade Lylat Wars. The original game is just over an hour long. Its levels are on-rails, because they were designed to demonstrate the N64’s 3D capability and the Rumble Pak technology. It is, as Keza MacDonald put it in the Guardian this week, “very much a product of technical limitation.” Remaking it preserves those limitations by choice rather than necessity, and a more ambitious game was clearly possible.
The Case For
Lylat Wars is one of the best games Nintendo has ever made. An hour long and endlessly replayable, with branching paths that reward skill and exploration, bosses with personality, dialogue that is campy and earnest simultaneously, and a difficulty curve that respects the player. It doesn’t need to be longer. It was designed for replayability, not completion. The question isn’t whether it’s worth experiencing — it absolutely is — but whether a remake is the right format for that experience in 2026.
The visual redesign is more interesting than it might seem. The new character models have already generated debate — people have strong feelings about exactly how an anthropomorphic toad should look — but redesigning rather than simply upscaling is a meaningful choice. It’s not a pixel-perfect recreation with smoothed textures. It’s a reimagining of how these characters and environments look, which at minimum suggests Nintendo is treating it as more than a legacy cash-in.
The online multiplayer is the addition that could genuinely change what the game is. Lylat Wars had a four-player local versus mode that nobody talks about because almost nobody had four controllers and three friends in the same room. Four Arwings, online, with the classic controls — that’s a different proposition entirely, and it might be the most important new element in the whole package.
What the Remake Needs to Get Right
The controls are non-negotiable. Lylat Wars worked because the controls were precise, responsive, and standard — no gimmicks. Star Fox Zero’s mandatory gyro failed because it replaced a control scheme that worked with one that didn’t. The Switch 2 remake needs to use a conventional controller as the default and keep the gyro optional at most. This should not need saying. It is being said anyway, because Nintendo’s track record here is imperfect.
The voice acting is a genuine variable. The original English dub of Lylat Wars is beloved — “Do a barrel roll,” “Can’t let you do that, Star Fox,” “Andross’s pawns are finished” — these lines are embedded in the memory of everyone who played the game in the late 90s. Recasting and re-recording is a risk. Getting the tone right — campy, self-aware, not ironic — is harder than it looks.
The branching paths need to be intact and clearly communicated. The reason Lylat Wars rewards replay is the route system — easier and harder paths depending on how well you perform on each planet, with different boss encounters and a different final sequence for players who find the harder route. This is the game’s core replayability engine. It needs to be preserved exactly.
The Bigger Picture
Sega is reviving Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio. Capcom and Square Enix have found remake territory very lucrative. The industry is, broadly, in a nostalgia cycle — and the argument that it should be complemented by new takes rather than replacements is a reasonable one. A Star Fox remake doesn’t preclude a new Star Fox game. It might be the thing that builds the audience for one.
Lylat Wars at its best is a near-perfect game. If this remake delivers on the visual redesign, gets the controls right, and makes the online multiplayer worth playing, it will be excellent. Whether it’s the Star Fox game the series needed is a separate question — and probably one for after it’s in our hands.
For the full history of Star Fox and what makes the series work, see our Looking Back: Star Fox piece coming November 2026. For more on Switch 2 and current gaming hardware, see Is This the Golden Age of Retro Gaming Hardware?