Nintendo’s runaway success in the Switch era has led to a real reinvigoration of so many of the company’s beloved series — Fire Emblem, Pikmin, Metroid, Xenoblade, and even Famicom Detective Club, of all things. But my single lingering wish, as I imagine with many fans, is for something, anything new for Star Fox. The space shooter series has long been one of Nintendo’s biggest cult classics, but after the rough reception of 2016’s Star Fox Zero, it seems like Nintendo simply didn’t know what to do with it. And while countless games have tried to be a spiritual successor, there’s never been one able to really stick the landing. But I’m hopeful that might all be about to change after playing the first few levels of Wild Blue Skies — which is quite literally Star Fox in everything but name. I’m hesitantly hopeful this might be the game to finally, truly scratch the itch that won’t go away.
Wild Blue Skies is developed by Chuhai Labs, a Japanese studio that used to be known as Vitei and was founded by Giles Goddard — one of the key programmers on the original Star Fox. So there’s a real pedigree for the studio behind Wild Blue Skies, and it’s abundantly clear right from the jump that the game is not shy, in the least, about emulating Nintendo’s franchise. Honestly, Wild Blue Skies feels so much like Star Fox that it practically seems like a challenge, a callout for leaving the series to languish for so long.
