Star Fox’s controversial redesign already has fans divided

This week, Nintendo shocked fans with a surprise reveal of a brand new Star Fox game. Simply titled Star Fox, it’s a full-on remake of Star Fox 64 that adds new story content and features a multiplayer battle mode. It should have been a cathartic moment for fans who have been waiting a decade for Fox McCloud’s return, but the reveal sparked a heated discourse instead: Is 2026 Fox hot enough?

The tension comes from the Switch 2 game’s already polarizing art style. Rather than leaning into the toon look teased in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Nintendo went in a new direction that skews more towards CG realism. You can count the hairs on Peppy Hare’s face, and Slippy Toad looks a bit like a wet Ninja Turtle from Jonathan Liebesman’s 2014 live-action film. It was a little jarring to see, and fans wasted no time dunking on it before the Direct was even over.

Having combed through the reactions, I found three common memes that have emerged since the reveal. The most common one compares Fox’s new look to that of Sonic the Hedgehog in his recent film trilogy — not the one we know and love now, but the “ugly” version that was so hated that it prompted a full redesign before the first film’s release.

The more damning of the three draws a parallel to the Stoned Fox, a 2012 art piece by Welsh artist Adele Morse. If that sounds a little obtuse, there’s a good chance you know what I’m talking about; it’s since become an iconic meme of a taxidermied fox sitting in a chair. The resemblance to Fox McCloud is, unfortunately, uncanny.

Some of the memes are a little more charitable towards the design. Many have evoked The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson’s 2009 animated film, noting similarities to the movie’s taxidermy art style. I’d call that a more positive spin.

While the memes were brutal in the moment, conversation about the character redesigns has leveled off a bit in the aftermath. The more you look at the models, the more you can understand what Nintendo is going for here. The Star Fox cast always looked a bit strange, going as far back as the series’ 1993 debut. The cover art of the SNES’ Star Fox featured a somewhat creepy puppet that didn’t look all that different from the Stoned Fox in retrospect. The new character designs are the closest the series has ever come to matching the real puppets that were used to promote the game.

Nintendo moved away from that aesthetic with later Star Fox games that made the crew into friendlier cartoon characters, but it has referenced it since. In a 2015 E3 presentation, Nintendo revealed Star Fox Zero through a skit that once again turned the crew into puppets. You could argue that the new Star Fox designs are far more in line with the series’ history than the toon makeover Fox got in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

Does that mean that the new art is free from sin? Certainly not. It all looks a bit uncanny in the clips Nintendo shared this week. Fox’s vacant gaze will stare a hole into your soul, Falco’s realistic plumage is a little freaky, and Slippy is just too damn wet. Peppy’s makeover is the best of the bunch, and the quick glimpse we got at the villainous Wolf is promising. Even Takaya Imamura, the original designer behind the series, doesn’t sound entirely on board yet. We’ll have to see it all in context to judge if the new designs are wonderfully expressive or downright hideous.

Thankfully, we won’t have to wait long to settle that debate considering that Star Fox will launch for Nintendo Switch 2 on June 25. Get your memes in while you can.