Nintendo did the thing nobody expected on a Tuesday afternoon. Less than ten minutes after the company's Nintendo Today app teased a "special broadcast," a fifteen-minute Star Fox Direct went live on May 6, 2026, ending an eleven-year drought for the franchise and confirming what those two weeks of leaked boxart, store listings, and Best Buy SKUs had been telling us. Star Fox is back, it's a full remake of Star Fox 64, it's a Switch 2 exclusive, and Fox McCloud is wing-leveling onto store shelves on June 25, 2026 at $49.99.
It's also the first Nintendo-published Star Fox game since Star Fox Zero tried — and infamously failed — to reinvent the series with motion controls back in 2016. The new one quietly does the opposite: it goes back to the most beloved entry in the series and rebuilds it from the inside out for modern hardware.
The "cinematic take" framing finally makes sense
Producer Yoshiaki Koizumi opened the Direct with the line that defined the entire presentation: this is "a cinematic take" on Star Fox 64. In practice that means three big changes layered on top of the original 1997 mission structure. The first is a full visual overhaul — Corneria, Zoness, the Asteroid Belt, and Sector Y all get the Switch 2 treatment, with new lighting, particle systems, and what looks like real-time reflective shaders on the Arwing's hull. The second is mission briefings: full cutscenes between stages, voiced dialogue, and a noticeably bigger emphasis on character interaction.
The third — and maybe the most interesting — is the recharacterization of the Star Fox crew. Fox, Falco, Peppy, and Slippy all sport new model designs that sit somewhere between the angular look of Smash Ultimate and the cleaner, more cartoony designs of Star Fox Zero. The art direction lands closer to a Pixar or Illumination film than to anything Nintendo has done with the series before, and the cinematics shown in the Direct lean into that hard.
The plot is, as expected, the same one Nintendo has been retelling since the N64. "Maniacal scientist Andross seeks control of the Lylat star system, and only Fox McCloud and the Star Fox team stand in his way." The branching mission paths from Star Fox 64 are intact, with hidden routes still tucked behind specific in-mission objectives, and the iconic "Do a barrel roll" callouts have been re-recorded but apparently kept word-for-word. Nostalgia mode: full.
Three modes, four-vs-four multiplayer, and Joy-Con 2 mouse aiming
The new Star Fox ships with three distinct modes, and only one of them is the campaign you remember.
Campaign Mode is the Star Fox 64 path-tree experience with three difficulty options — Easy, Normal, and Expert. Medal collection unlocks Expert, mirroring how the N64 original gated its hardest setting behind player skill. Challenge Mode gives you completed stages with new objectives layered on top: time attack, no-hit runs, and "rookie" runs where you can't fire your wing-mate's beam. And then Battle Mode is the headline addition — 4-vs-4 multiplayer dogfights, Team Star Fox vs. Team Star Wolf, across three multiplayer-only stages with rotating objectives. Up to eight players online or local, and Battle Mode supports GameShare so you don't all need a copy.
The control system is where the Switch 2 hardware finally pays off for the series. The Joy-Con 2 mouse mode handles aiming and reticle control with a level of precision the Pro Controller can't match, and the Direct demonstrated a co-op mode where one player handles flight controls on the left Joy-Con while a second player handles aiming on the right Joy-Con — the same Pilot/Gunner split that has always been part of the series' fiction but has never actually been playable until now.
GameChat avatars, AR filters, and the Switch 2's social hooks
Nintendo also leaned into the Switch 2's social features in a way they didn't with the launch software. GameChat avatars let you appear in your friends' video calls as Fox, Falco, Peppy, or Slippy — the kind of thing that looks goofy on paper and undeniably charming in motion. There are also Star Fox-themed AR filters that show up in GameChat sessions: little Arwing wings, a fake Star Fox HUD overlay across your face, and a "Do a barrel roll" frame transition for chat windows.
None of this is critical to the game itself, but it's a notable shift. The Switch 2 launch lineup mostly treated GameChat as a separate utility. Star Fox is the first first-party game to wire it directly into the experience, which suggests Nintendo wants future Switch 2 titles to do the same.
The eleven-year drought is finally over
The last Nintendo-developed Star Fox game was Star Fox Zero in 2016, and that one is fondly remembered by almost nobody. Before that, the most recent solo Star Fox release was Star Fox 64 3D on the 3DS — itself a remake of this same source material. Which means, depending on how you count, this is either the first new Star Fox game in a decade, or the third remake of the same N64 game in twenty-five years.
The fact that Nintendo went the safe-bet remake route instead of attempting another reinvention is, on balance, the right call. Star Fox 64 is the most beloved entry in the series, the cinematic-cutscene framing fits the franchise's pulp space-opera tone better than any motion-control gimmick ever did, and the Switch 2 hardware finally has the precision aiming hooks the series has needed since the original.
Star Fox launches digitally and at retail on June 25, 2026, exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2, for $49.99. Pre-orders are live on the Nintendo eShop now, and the Direct is permanently archived on Nintendo's official channel — barrel rolls, Andross, and all.
