Star Fox Switch 2 Review – Soaring at a Buttery 60fps, but this Faithful Remake Is a Bit Too Safe

After spending years adrift, it seems like the Star Fox series is poised to fly high once again, with a well-received appearance by Fox McCloud in the Super Mario Galaxy Movie and now a new Nintendo Switch 2-exclusive game. While simply titled Star Fox, this latest title is, in fact, a glossy current-gen remake of Star Fox 64, which is still considered by many to be the best in the series nearly 30 years after its initial release.

Does Star Fox 2026 prove that everything old can successfully be made new again? Or does this revival miss the mark? Boost onward for the answer.

If you've played Star Fox 64, or really most Star Fox games, you’ll know what to expect when it comes to story. Fox McCloud is the young leader of the Star Fox mercenary team, who are called into service to defend the Lylat System from the invading forces of the exiled mad scientist Andross. You and your plucky crew make your way across the system, countering Andross' invasion on a sector-by-sector basis, eventually taking the fight to the big bad floating head himself at his home base on Venom.

The plot specifics haven't changed with this remake. Aside from a brief new prologue cutscene showing us the fate of Fox's dad, James McCloud, don't expect any entirely new plot twists. What Star Fox 2026 developer Velan Studios has done is add additional character depth, context, and richness to the story that was already there.

Mission introductions that were handled with only brief text exchanges in Star Fox 64 are now given the full cutscene treatment. The personalities of your team have been sharpened — in keeping with his characterization in the Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Fox is now more of a Han Solo roguish archetype, with his status as a mercenary being more heavily emphasized. The relationship between Fox and Falco is more of a brotherly, friendly rivalry, rather than Falco just being an unprompted jerk. Even Slippy gets more moments to shine with his engineering smarts and enthusiasm being emphasized over his goofier aspects.

The new cutscenes also do a better job explaining the reasons why you're engaging in each mission, making your trip through the Lylat system feel like more of a coordinated war effort rather than just a series of loosely connected adventures. A new codex of "Holoviewer" files provides even more context for the game's missions, worlds, characters, and more.

As for gameplay, well, it's Star Fox! Maneuver your Arwing, shoot down baddies, hold down the fire button to lock onto targets and take out several enemies at once, clear the screen with smart bombs, "Do a barrel roll!" You know the drill. Star Fox 64 mostly stuck to the on-rails level design of the original SNES game, but also threw a new tank, submarine, and some All-Range dogfighting missions into the mix. Newly-added mouse controls work well enough, but the questionable decision to assign aiming and ship movement to the mouse means most folks will probably opt for traditional controls.

Slightly odd mouse controls aside, Star Fox 2026 feels fantastic to play, with responsiveness being spot-on and gameplay running at a buttery-smooth 60fps. It's a major upgrade over the N64 original, which often chugged along at an almost-slow-motion 15 to 20fps (even the 3DS remake was only 30fps). The fluidity of this new Star Fox really transforms some missions, with the classic Corneria almost feeling like it's being played in fast forward, with everything coming at you at such a smooth clip, and Aquas actually being fun for the first time.

Star Fox doesn't just run well; it looks fantastic too, offering a fairly sharp 1440p image when playing docked (likely with some upscaling help). Once again, the upgrade is often transformational, with, for instance, the dismal greyness of Zoness becoming a beautifully turbulent ocean world and the somewhat abstract Sector X turning into a detailed, moody, and intimidating debris field. On the subject of the somewhat controversial Star Fox team redesigns, frankly, I like 'em. They're weird, animalistic, and have a bit of an edge to them, and that absolutely works for this world and story. These freaky animal people are fighting a life-and-death intergalactic war; they don't need to look like plushies.

With a boost from the new visuals and tech, most of Star Fox's 30-year-old mission design holds up surprisingly well. This is particularly true of the on-rails sections, which universally remain a blast to play. Slightly more hit-and-miss are the All-Range sections, which were a novel thing in 1997, but now sometimes feel a bit underwhelming. Sure, a mission like Fichina that basically just consists of a single dogfight against Star Wolf is still entertaining enough, but there’s just not that much to it. Overall, though, I still had a blast playing (and re-playing) through this campaign, even if it's still the same collection of missions all us N64 kids remember.

If you're looking for entirely new content, that's mainly found in Star Fox's new slim yet entertaining multiplayer mode. The game offers up three maps, each with their own gimmick -- a Corneria-inspired map where players fight for control of a series of zones, a Fichina map where players snap up energy crystals contained within falling meteorites, and a Sector Y map where you capture cargo to haul back to your base. I found all three modes surprisingly engaging, with the maps perhaps providing a hint at what Velan Studios could do with All-Range missions if they were given the go-ahead to make their own original Star Fox game. Really, the only downside to multiplayer is that there are only those three maps.

And this is where we segue into discussing what will be Star Fox’s key shortcoming for some players: the game’s amount of content (or lack thereof). Yes, you can beat Star Fox the first time through in around 90 minutes and see everything its multiplayer mode has to offer in an additional 10 minutes. But, of course, Star Fox is meant to be replayed.

The game's system of branching paths means you'll have to play through the game at least 3 times to experience all the missions, which will take you closer to 5 hours. There's also more room for mastery this time around, as each mission now has a dozen challenges to chase, some of which are no easy task. Cleaning up everything Star Fox has to offer -- finishing every mission on both normal and expert mode, collecting every medal, checking off every challenge -- is probably close to a 20-hour task.

Are today’s players going to be willing to invest in a game built so squarely around high-score chasing and perfecting your skills through repetition? I'm not entirely sure, although the continued popularity of speedrunning tells me there’s still an audience that will happily lock onto what this game is offering.

This review was based on a copy of Star Fox provided by publisher Nintendo.

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8.5

WCCFTECH RATING

Star Fox

Star Fox’s combination of tried-and-true N64 mission design, stunning new visuals, and technical polish results in a game that feels both nostalgic and surprisingly fresh, exciting, and fun here in 2026. Yes, perhaps more fully original content could have been added to the package, but this new Star Fox did a surprisingly adept job of barrel rolling past my concerns and should satisfy veteran and newcomer wingmen alike.

Pros

• Richer characters and storytelling
• Impressively luxurious new visuals
• Spot-on controls and performance
• Most missions still hold up
• Multiplayer is good fun
• Challenges add replay

Cons

• Some All-Range missions a bit simple
• Could use more original content

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