Wild Blue Skies: the best Star Fox of the year comes from one of the original Star Fox programmers

You are right about the main thing: it is gorgeous. The anime-inspired visuals, the hand-crafted environments, that light over the oceans and desert ridges, all of it catches the eye immediately. But the story behind this game is better still than its images, and it deserves telling in order.

First, a qualification about Nintendo's Star Fox

You describe a Star Fox that was not great, and that needs qualifying, because the facts are slightly more awkward than the memory.

Star Fox did return this year, on 25 June, on Switch 2, developed by Velan Studios for Nintendo. And contrary to what you might assume, it was very well received: around 81 on Metacritic, the second-highest score in the series' history. The press praised its 4K visuals, its handling and its faithfulness to the 1997 classic.

Except there is a but, and it is probably the one you were feeling without phrasing it that way. The recurring complaint, a minority view but an insistent one, fits in a sentence: after ten years of waiting, we got a polished retread of a twenty-six-year-old game rather than a new adventure. It is an excellent remake, and that is precisely the problem. The series was not relaunched, it was restored.

Which is why Wild Blue Skies lands so well.

Next, the piece of information that changes everything

Wild Blue Skies is developed by Chuhai Labs and VITEI BACKROOM, published by Balor Games. Those names mean nothing to the general public, so let us explain.

The studio was founded by Giles Goddard, one of the very first Western employees at Nintendo. He is the man who programmed Mario's face in Super Mario 64, the one we all pulled at on the title screen for hours. He worked on 1080 Snowboarding, on Steel Diver, and above all he was among the programmers of the original Star Fox on Super Nintendo. In 2002 he founded his own studio in Kyoto, Vitei, which became Chuhai Labs in 2020.

In other words: while Nintendo handed the Star Fox remake to an American studio, one of the men who programmed the 1993 game released an original spiritual successor the same summer. That is the kind of coincidence that makes a year interesting, and the specialist press noticed, several outlets describing this game as the Star Fox Nintendo keeps ignoring.

What the game offers

It is a single-player on-rails flight shooter, presented as a modern take on the arcade games of the nineties, built for those who used to chase high scores as much as for newcomers to the genre.

You join Bowie Stray and the Blue Bombers, a squad of four pilots, Bowie, Thorne, Chuck and Roe, each with their own personality and voice, to push back Grimclaw's forces. Banter between pilots and encounters with rival squads run through the campaign, which is exactly the original recipe: you do not fly alone, you fly with people who talk.

Structurally, you soar over oceans, desert ridges and perilous caves against waves of enemies. Missions offer branching paths, with hidden routes and secrets to uncover, letting you replay a level along a different trajectory. On top sits a scoring system and medals to earn.

The stated philosophy is the right one for this genre: easy to pick up, deeply rewarding to master. The difference between finishing a mission and truly owning it.

What we do not know yet

The game is out today on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series, with a Switch version announced for later in the year.Good news, the interface and subtitles are available in French, and a demo lets you judge for yourself.

The only real unknown is the one every on-rails shooter faces: length. The genre rests on short campaigns you replay for score and alternate routes, and its longevity depends entirely on how generous the branching is and how demanding the medal system proves. If the hidden paths are plentiful and the scores exacting, you come back for weeks. Otherwise it is a lovely evening and that is that.

To answer your question about how to play it: the campaign first, obviously, to meet the squad. But in this genre the real game starts on the second attempt, when you know the level and you are hunting the perfect line. That was true in 1993, and it has not changed.

It credits a remarkable art direction, a complete flight vocabulary and a lineage that is not a marketing line, while accounting for the longevity uncertainty inherent to the genre.

And you, campaign first or score first?

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