Star Fox is Nintendo's sci-fi rail shooter series, created by Shigeru Miyamoto and developed with British studio Argonaut Software, debuting in 1993 on the Super Nintendo. Players pilot the Arwing as Fox McCloud and the Star Fox mercenary team to stop Dr.

Andross from conquering the Lylat System. After a decade-long pause since Star Fox Zero (2016), the series returns with Star Fox (2026), a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive launching June 25, 2026 worldwide and July 2 in South Korea, built as a remake of Star Fox 64.

Star Fox is a sci-fi rail shooter franchise published by Nintendo, in which players pilot the Arwing starfighter as Fox McCloud and the Star Fox mercenary team to stop the mad scientist Dr. Andross from conquering the Lylat System.

Most entries are third-person on-rails space combat, with selected installments adding free-flight "all-range" arenas and ground or underwater vehicles. The series follows a small mercenary squadron of anthropomorphic animals contracted by the Cornerian Army.

The original 1993 game is a forward-scrolling 3D rail shooter; later entries widen the formula to include free-roaming dogfights, on-foot sections, action-adventure design (in Star Fox Adventures), and even a tower defense spin-off (Star Fox Guard).

The Arwing is the constant: a triangular fighter with side-mounted G Diffusers that has appeared in every main entry to date.

Hands-On Verdict: "Star Fox is Nintendo's flagship space-combat franchise — tight rail-shooter design wrapped in a cinematic dogfight, with branching paths instead of linear levels." Star Fox was created by Shigeru Miyamoto and developed by Nintendo EAD with British studio…

It was the first home console game to use the Super FX chip — a math co-processor built into the cartridge — to deliver hardware-accelerated 3D graphics during a predominantly 2D era.

The concept drew on Miyamoto's visits to a shrine of the Japanese fox deity Inari Ōkami, whose corridor of arches influenced the rail-shooter level structure. Argonaut programmed the game and co-designed the Super FX chip, which was later reused in other SNES titles.

Outside North America and Japan, the game was released as Starwing in PAL territories, reportedly to avoid a trademark conflict with a German company called StarVox. Star Fox 64 was later renamed Lylat Wars in PAL regions for the same reason.