Star Fox is a shooter, third-person adventure game series developed by Nintendo, Argonaut Software, Rare, Namco, Q-Games, Nintendo, and Platinum Games.
The series typically features vehicle combat missions around the Lylat planetary system, led by Fox McCloud and his team of anthropomorphic animals fighter pilots, which also includes Falco, Slippy, and Peppy.
The original Star Fox was released on the Super Famicom in Japan on February 21, 1993, then came to North America in March and Europe (as ‘Star Wing’) in June.
According to producer Shigeru Miyamoto, Star Fox was inspired by the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine, nearby Nintendo’s headquarters in Kyoto, Japan. In a 1993 interview, Miyamoto said he used to regularly visit the shrine, with its many Torii gates, and imagine flying a spaceship through them.
The shrine also has a statue of a kitsune – a fox with paranormal abilities – which would ultimately inspire the design of Fox McCloud.
Star Fox quickly was notable at the time for its pioneering 3D graphics, which were powered by a special ‘Super FX’ chip in its game cartridge, which was built in collaboration with the British studio Argonaut Software.
Two of Argonaut’s young programmers, Dylan Cuthbert and Giles Goddard, relocated to Japan to work on Star Fox. Design was led by Shigeru Miyamoto and Katsuya Eguchi. Characters were designed by Takaya Imamura, and music was composed by Hajime Hirasawa.
Star Fox was an instant hit for Nintendo, selling more than 1.7 million copies at launch, which was reportedly the fastest-selling opening for a game in North America at the time. By 1998, Star Fox has sold more than 4 million copies.
Famously, the game’s development team went on to develop a SNES sequel, Star Fox 2, that, despite being completed, was not released so that Nintendo could prioritize a Nintendo 64 instalment (Star Fox 2 was eventually released, decades later, for Nintendo Switch).
By the time Star Fox’s sequel, Star Fox 64 (‘Lylat Wars’ in Europe), arrived, polygonal gaming had become the standard. Instead, the N64 title brought with it a new innovation – the Rumble Pak, a device which was included with the game and provided force feedback to the N64 controller.
Future Star Fox games would be developed almost entirely by external studios. 2002’s Star Fox Adventures was an action adventure spin-off created by Rare. 2005’s more traditional entry, Star Fox Assault, was developed by Namco. And 2016’s Star Fox Zero was made by PlatinumGames.
Star Fox also saw handheld instalments in the form of 2006’s Star Fox Command and 2011’s Star Fox 64 3D, both of which were developed by Q-Games, the company founded by original Star Fox programmer Dylan Cuthbert.
Star Fox (series) News
