The ‘Star Fox’ Switch 2 launch landed on Thursday, 25 June 2026, dropping Fox McCloud and his squadron back into the cockpit for the first new entry in the series since 2016.
Developer Velan Studios has rebuilt the on-rails space shooter for Nintendo’s new hardware, and the early verdict is warm. The game sits at 81 on Metacritic and 82 on OpenCritic, with 92% of critics recommending it to players.
What the ‘Star Fox’ Switch 2 launch adds
This is less a fresh adventure than a glossy reworking of Star Fox 64, the 1997 Nintendo 64 classic that defined the franchise.
Velan layers in fully voiced cinematic cutscenes and never-before-seen mission briefings that slot between stages, fleshing out the thin story the original raced straight through.
The feature list runs deeper than nostalgia. There is a challenge mode for players chasing high scores, a battle mode with online multiplayer, and optional mouse controls mapped to the Joy-Con 2 for anyone who wants finer aim than the analogue stick allows.
Velan Studios is best known for Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, the augmented-reality kart racer it built with Nintendo in 2020, so the partnership is not new. Handing the studio a dormant marquee franchise signals real trust, and a fair amount of pressure to get the revival right at launch.
Why the ‘Star Fox’ revival matters for Nintendo
Fox McCloud has been grounded for a long time. The last outing, Star Fox Zero, limped onto the Wii U in 2016 and split fans with its awkward motion controls, leaving the series in cold storage while Nintendo chased its bigger franchises elsewhere.
A polished remake on the day-one window of a fresh console cycle is a low-risk way to test whether the appetite is still there.
The reviews suggest the core arcade thrill holds up, even as several critics argue the series is overdue for something brand new rather than another lap around Corneria.
For newcomers, the remake works as a clean entry point, since the all-range dogfights and branching mission paths need no prior knowledge of the lore. For veterans, the draw is seeing those tight 1997 set pieces rebuilt with modern visuals and a soundtrack that leans on the original score.
The open question is whether Velan and Nintendo follow this up with an original Star Fox built from scratch.
A strong commercial showing this week would make that case far easier to argue, and the launch numbers over the coming days will tell Nintendo whether Fox McCloud has a future beyond remakes.
