Nintendo Life’s Weekend Poll: Star Fox Remake Leads Switch 2 Playtime for July 4-5
More than a week after launch, Nintendo’s Star Fox remake is still the game Switch 2 owners can’t put down. In Nintendo Life’s regular reader feature and poll asking what the community is playing, the Velan Studios-developed reimagining of Star Fox 64 was the runaway pick for the July 4-5 weekend, with commenters queuing up to say it was the only thing on their Switch 2 that mattered.
Readers keep choosing the Arwing over everything else
“It’s Star Fox for me,” one reader wrote, adding they’d “boshed through a Hard Route run” on their first try, crediting 30 years of Star Fox 64 muscle memory for making the remake’s Normal difficulty feel approachable. Another commenter put it more bluntly: “Star Fox, Star Fox, and more Star Fox. I simply can’t get enough of this game!”
The trend wasn’t a one-weekend blip. By the time Nintendo Life ran its next weekend feature on July 11, the site’s own team confirmed “Game of the week is still Star Fox,” with one contributor noting “I do hope for DLC on the way, this game is truly a gift that keeps on giving.” Three consecutive weekends of reader features now point to the same conclusion: Nintendo’s decision to remake Star Fox 64 a second time, controversial when it was first revealed, has translated into genuine, sustained playtime rather than a launch-week curiosity.
UK sales charts back up the reader poll
The enthusiasm isn’t confined to comment sections. Independent chart data reported by Video Games Chronicle shows Star Fox topping the UK charts and selling significantly faster than its most recent predecessors, according to Nielsen IQ figures cited by The Game Business’s Christopher Dring. The remake sold nearly double what Star Fox Zero did during its opening week on Wii U, with sales also up roughly 70 percent compared to the 3DS remaster Star Fox 64 3D’s launch week.
Crucially, that wasn’t a one-off. Star Fox’s week two sales put it top of the UK charts again, ahead of EA Sports FC 26, Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition, and Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream — a rare feat for a rail-shooter remake going up against annual sports franchises and blockbuster ports.
Critics call it a “sublime” if familiar remaster
Review scores help explain why players are sticking with it. As compiled by TheGamer, Jim Norman at Nintendo Life awarded the remake a 9/10, writing, “Star Fox on Switch 2 is a sublime remaster of Star Fox 64, and that’s both its best and worst feature.” TheGamer’s own review landed at 4/5, with the outlet arguing “this remake of Star Fox is the best the series has ever looked, the best it has ever felt to play,” appealing to both longtime fans and newcomers. Game Informer’s Kyle Hilliard scored it 83/100, calling it “a joyful, updated reminder of why the 1997 game is, in fact, very good and fun.”
The consensus, as TheGamer summarised it, is that while Star Fox may not have scored as highly as some of 2026’s biggest releases, its strong review scores prove it’s exactly what Nintendo needed — a soft reboot for Fox McCloud to test whether the mascot deserves a brand-new game.
From surprise Direct to sold-out Aussie shelves
The remake’s momentum is notable given how it arrived. Nintendo sprang the reveal on fans with almost no warning: a post credited to Shigeru Miyamoto announced the Star Fox Direct roughly an hour before it aired, running for approximately 15 minutes, with producer Yoshiaki Koizumi introducing the new game as based on Star Fox 64 for the N64. It marked the franchise’s first new game in ten years, following Star Fox Zero on Wii U.
For Australian players, the launch also came with a modest local discount. Press Start reported that Nintendo Switch eShop pricing landed at $84.95, a $15 drop from the recommended retail price, consistent with the cheaper pricing Nintendo has applied to other Switch 2 titles since physical editions became the pricier option — a pattern that mirrors the game’s US and UK digital-versus-physical pricing gap.
With Nintendo Life’s community still logging Hard Route runs, online Battle Mode sessions and medal hunts three weekends after launch, and UK retail data confirming it’s more than just enthusiast noise, Star Fox looks like one of the more durable hits of Switch 2’s first full year — even if, as several reviewers noted, it’s a very familiar trip through the Lylat System.
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