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At Gamescom, Rhiannon Bevan from TheGamer got in some words with none other than Takaya Imamura, a key character designer for Star Fox and F-Zero. In the interview, they went over the two dormant franchises and whether or not a revival for either or both could be on the horizon.
Luckily for Star Fox fans, Imamura believes that, out of the two, Shigeru Miyamoto- the creator of both franchises- has “got [the[ strongest feelings for Star Fox,” rather than F-Zero. He then suggested that, because of Miyamoto’s love for the Star Fox series, “we’ll see another game, film, [or] some kind of new development with the IP at some point, but I don’t know when or what.”
And on his behalf, Imamura has already told Miyamoto to “please give me a call” for when and if a Star Fox movie gets greenlit.
On that note, Imamura also spoke about the merits of adapting games iinto film:
“If you create a game on a certain game platform or medium, so for example, F-Zero on the Super Nintendo, once that hardware platform is gone, then the IP itself ceases to be accessible. But if you create a film, then that’s accessible through the ages.”
As for F-Zero, the artist who brought Captain Falcon to life hinted that Miyamoto would need a good reason or a new spin on the series to prioritize it over new games and new projects.
This, of course, tracks with what we know of Nintendo’s M.O.
In a 2022 interview with Venture Beat, former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé suggested the same as Imamura did recently, saying that “at least during my tenure, Nintendo developers were always experimenting with different gameplay styles, always thinking about where a unique experience could be applied back, either to an existing franchise or maybe creating a new franchise. My bet is that somewhere in the Kyoto development centers, some developer is playing around with an idea that might be applied to F-Zero. It’s never a situation, at least in my experience, where the company makes a conscious decision not to continue supporting X-Y-Z franchise. Historically it just hasn’t worked that way, not when I was there.”
Beyond that, Imamura talked about AI briefly, saying:
“It’s human nature to want to see the face of the person behind the creative vision. So I do think AI can be used […] but I think at the end of the day, there’s going to be somebody behind that or creating something alongside, because, without that, there’s no connection between the audience and the artist.”
And finally, he talked about some of his own creativity by brushing up on his upcoming game Omega 6: The Triangle Stars:
“As a creative person, I just want to work on the things I want to work on. Just keep creating,”
“Omega 6 has been born in a time when it’s actually really difficult to kick off [a] new IP, so I’m really, really thankful to everybody who’s been involved.”
Fans of Imamura’s previous works may want to keep an eye out for Omega 6, which, despite not having a definitive release date for Switch, seems poised to deliver some of the charm that defined Star Fox and F-Zero during his time at Nintendo.