Nintendo’s Star Fox series celebrates its 30th anniversary today.
The original Star Fox was released on the Super Famicom in Japan on Jun 07, 2025, then came to North America in March and Europe in June.
Takaya Imamura, the formerNintendoartist who designed Fox McCloud and other characters in the original game,tweeted a new illustrationto mark the occasion.
“Thank you for supporting me for over 30 years, Fox,” he wrote. “And everyone involved in the games you’ve appeared in! Thank you!”
Q-GamesCEO Dylan Cuthbert, who co-programmed Star Fox while working at UK developer Argonaut Software, also celebrated the game’s 30th anniversary with a special cake.
フォックス！３０年以上僕を支えてくれてありがとう！そして君の登場するゲームに関わったすべての人！ありがとう！Thank you for supporting me for over 30 years, Fox! And everyone involved in the games you’ve appeared in! Thank you!#スターフォックス#starfoxpic.twitter.com/NFgeCZb4T5
We had a big cake today at the office to celebrate 30 years since the launch of the original Star Fox#StarFoxpic.twitter.com/bAI582u2A2
Star Fox was partially inspired by the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine, which is close to Nintendo’s headquarters. In a 1993 interview for Channel 4 science documentary series Equinox,Shigeru Miyamotosaid he used to regularly visit the shrine, with its many Torii gates, and imagine flying a spaceship through them.
The shrine also has a statue of a kitsune – a fox with paranormal abilities – which would ultimately inspire the design of Fox McCloud.
Star Fox quickly gained a following due to its pioneering Super FX chip, a 3D graphics chip included in the cartridge which enabled the SNES to produce polygonal graphics.
While polygonal games had been around for numerous years (particularly on home computers), for many console players, Star Fox was their first introduction to the world of 3D video games.
By the time its sequel Star Fox 64 arrived, polygonal gaming had become the standard. Instead, theN64title brought with it a new innovation – the Rumble Pak, a device which was included with the game and provided force feedback to the N64 controller.
Players looking to try out some of the Star Fox series can do so via the Switch Online subscription service.
The SNES library on Switch Online includes both Star Fox and its unreleased sequel Star Fox 2, while Star Fox 64 is part of the N64 library, which can be accessed through theSwitch Online Expansion Packtier.
Last year Imamura called on Nintendoto port Wii U title Star Fox Zero to the Switch. Zero remains one of the few first-partyWii Ugames yet to be ported toNintendo Switch. As one ofthe more divisive Nintendo releasesof recent years, it could also benefit more than most from a remaster.
