With no lead-up whatsoever, Nintendo announced Star Fox, a Switch 2 remake of the Nintendo 64 game known as Lylat Wars in Australia.
Due to release on 25 June, Star Fox completely overhauls the original game with a modern look and more cutscenes to create a more “cinematic” feel. Rather than the highly expressive design seen in the Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Fox McCloud looks somewhat more lifelike — as lifelike as a maverick anthropomorphic fox pilot can look.
Aside from new visuals and multiplayer modes, the most novel reveal during a 15-minute Nintendo Direct presentation was what I’ve seen called online ‘Vtuber mode’. Via the Switch 2’s GameChat feature, you can overlay various Star Fox characters over your face while on a video call. Like Memoji on iPhone, the characters mimic your movements and facial expressions. While I highly doubt it’ll let me flip off my friends as Slippy Toad, it looks like a goofily fun addition.
When Nintendo first announced the Switch 2 last year, it emphasised GameChat as a major social gaming feature. Even the console’s controllers have a dedicated GameChat button to start voice and video chat sessions with friends online.
However, the feature doesn’t seem to have taken off quite like Fox’s iconic Arwing. It’s tricky to tell how widely used GameChat is, as Nintendo doesn’t share data about its uptake. Based on social media comments and memes, though, there are plenty of jokes that the only time people use the feature is when they accidentally press the button that activates it.
A decent enough idea in theory, Nintendo launched GameChat when many gamers already had dedicated gaming chat platforms. Discord is synonymous with online game comms, and will be tough to dislodge.
Will Star Fox see a sudden widespread adoption of GameChat? Who knows! But it looks like an amusing excuse to try Nintendo’s social features again. Discord won’t let me become a fox (hello, 1973’s Robin Hood fans), so you can count on me to try Star Fox’s silly gimmick when it arrives next month.
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