The Star Fox Demo for the Switch 2 Does Right By the Troubled Series

The Star Fox Demo for the Switch 2 Does Right By the Troubled Series

Save the animals.

A video game series' legacy is only as strong as the sales of its last-released game. Even long-lived gaming bloodlines can be badly dinged by a title that tanks on the sales charts, regardless of how good that game is. (Or isn't.) One failure doesn't necessarily mean the death of that franchise, but let-down fans can expect a long, long hibernation at the very least.

Star Fox is not one of these franchises. This 3D space shooter series has had a bumpy career, especially in instances wherein protagonist Fox McCloud wanders away from his Arwing's cockpit. Granted, it's not like he always flies straight even when he's behind the yoke. Another game studio would've put Fox and his friends to sleep ages ago, but Nintendo has a soft spot for the crack pilot, going as far as to give him a cameo in the Super Mario Galaxy Movie this year. That cameo has since fed into the reveal for a new Star Fox game for the Switch 2, which, going by the available demo, looks awesome and plays like a dream.

The original Star Fox, released in 1993 for the SNES, received critical acclaim for its messy but ambitious 3D world courtesy of its "Super FX chip" and its absolutely bangin' orchestral soundtrack. Star Fox 2 was proposed and completed for the SNES, but it was bumped aside for the much more impressive-looking Star Fox 64, which came to the N64 in 1997. Star Fox 64 is arguably the best game in the Star Fox franchise. It's a re-imagining of the original Star Fox game: There are some familiar level names, and Fox McCloud's menagerie of weird animal pals are present and accounted for. Star Fox 64 controls like a dream, with creative and fun stages for players to shoot through, and its script is legendary. ("Do a you-know-what!") It's no wonder Nintendo chose to port Star Fox 64 to the Nintendo 3DS in 2011. It played even better on the 3D handheld, but it simultaneously revealed a problem: Star Fox can't move past the material of that first Super NES game despite its pained, tragic attempts to do so.

And here we are again in 2026 with "Star Fox" (no subtitle; just the Fox, ma'am), coming to Switch 2 on June 25. Yes, it's another interpretation of Star Fox 64, but it interacts with your muscle memory instead of fighting against it like in Star Fox Zero's controversial two-screen Wii U setup. Flying through Star Fox's Switch 2 demo feels new but familiar, which is admittedly a cop-out expression. It prompts you to crawl through your memories and hose them down, but there is tons of new animal beef to sort through, too. Even the demo indicates there is going to be a lot more story this time around. This revelation is delivered through Star Fox's tutorial scene, and it's an amusing aside. The boys are back together, but Falco's being a turd and Fox always needs to get the last word. No doubt this'll all come to a head later in the game, especially since Falco has canonically split with Star Fox in the past to putter around with other teams.

On top of it all, Nintendo's designs for the Star Fox team have some people unsettled with how realistic / uncanny valley they are. Movie Fox McCloud's big, bright eyes and hyper-expressive eyebrows are nowhere to be seen in the new Star Fox game. Fox McCloud and his pals are unapologetically animalistic, which everyone knows is the correct and blessed way to design animal-people. You can almost see the parasites flitting between Falco's sky-blue face feathers.

June 25 can't come fast enough for us Fox Fiends. It's an exciting release, even amidst this torrent of content that buries game hype like sediment. Nintendo doesn't always do right by Fox, but when he flies, he flies like a vulpine angel. It's good that he's still allowed to do it.