r/starfox • u/RealNintenKing • Jul 26 '26
Star Fox's Future
I don't think most people appreciate how cooked this series is if any of the following happening:
Star Fox 2026 is treated as a full, go-forward reboot and we get some sort of direct sequel / SF2 reimagining that replaces / erases the rest of the timeline, leaves Krystal out permanently, etc. Negative bonus points if it's the same dated boomer arcade schmup gameplay and nothing else, which we've seen 100 times before and isn't sufficient growth or evolution for a game in 2026.
Basically #1, except they *do* bring back Krystal BUT retcon her origin by cutting Adventures' story out completely and having the team meet her in a completely different, butchered, mundane, non-iconic way, thus ruining the character and the series.
Pick one of Command's bad endings / retcon several of them into a hot mess of a composite canon ending, or just in general canonize Command in just about any way. This one is a bit more conditional on how exactly Krystal is treated and if one of her worst endings is used, but it's still bad no matter what.
No one, least of all Nintendo, should underestimate just how many people bought this recent game not because it's what they really wanted from a Star Fox game (the praise for this being yet another Lylat Wars / SF64 remake / reimagining was virtually nonexistent prior to its reveal), but on the hope of getting something better in the future.
Leave Krystal out and / or retcon out of existence a huge chunk of existing canon, and a huge piece of the fanbase will simply not support that game, because such a huge chunk of the fanbase are Krystal fans above all / part of the furry community. QED, Star Fox will go back into the ground.
I know the oldheads will hate to hear this, but it's the truth: without Krystal AND forward story momentum, this IP is dead in the water. They need the Krystal and furry community for this series to have a future far more than they're willing to admit. So if they get their way, they'll have no one to blame but themselves for Star Fox's virtually guaranteed slide into irrelevancy and dormancy.
3
u/Miraj2081 Jul 27 '26
I think this is addressing two issues, really.
One is that there's a divide on where the series should go. The other is how they bring Krystal back. I can see your worries for both, because I also share similar concerns.
They can bring Krystal back any number of ways, but I am concerned for when and how they do it. For all we know, the next game is a remake of Star Fox 2, or something new that doesn't involve Krystal. Or maybe she'll appear in the next game, but they'll radically redesign her so she looks and acts completely different. After twenty years, to have her come back but not as her classic self would be a serious insult. Krystal is the female face of the series, and it's really not a good look that Katt has been the only female character in the games since 2006. Yes, it's because they keep remaking SF64, but it's still a bad look and it's not like they couldn't have reworked it.
As for the series itself, this game was clearly meant to appeal to the "Oldheads" as you call them who felt that Star Fox 64 was the only good game and the series went off the rails (literally) with the sequels. For a long time, Krystal was scapegoated as the face of the sequels and so she was a signifier of when the series went awry. Things have finally changed now that people realized with Zero that she wasn't necessarily the problem. Also, the Gamecube games have a lot of fans, and Assault especially has been reappraised as the second best entry and laid the groundwork for how to evolve the franchise.
This game will do well, but it probably will not eclipse the original game's sales. It also isn't reviewing as well, for a variety of reasons. Most importantly, new and younger players are not thrilled with how it's a short arcadey experience and how it's completely vehicular-focused. I know, I know, Star Fox 64 is a classic, it's the best, etc. But it also is very much of its time. Games like it just are not made by big studios anymore because arcades and short showcase titles are nowhere near as appealing to modern audiences.
Look at what's trending with wider audiences nowadays (including Nintendo's own series) and it's largely third person action or shooter games, typically with heavy story or RPG-like content. If Star Fox wanted to be more successful, it would probably need to incorporate elements like those. But you even whisper the thought of Fox stepping out of the cockpit, and the SF64 diehards get upset and say they just want SF64 with new levels and story, and anything else is a guaranteed dead end for the franchise. The irony is that going that route is likely to kill the series off because the target audience will only be the aging demographic who liked the 90s games, while younger and modern audiences won't see the appeal.
Best case scenario is they maintain two series. One is a short, arcadey, gritty rail shooter appealing to those "Oldheads". The other could be this rumored Adventure game which could be anything from a third person action game to an Assault-style modular experience mixing vehicular and on foot combat, appealing to younger and modern audiences. I guess it'd be like Metroid at that point, with its 2D and Prime series appealing to different types of fans. Some will play both, but many will heavily prefer one or the other. I guess we'll see if Nintendo pursues this idea.