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Star Fox Adventures is back on Switch 2, giving the series' oddest detour another chance
Fox McCloud is leaving the cockpit again. Star Fox Adventures has joined the GameCube Nintendo Classics catalogue on Switch 2, bringing back the strange 2002 Rare adventure that replaced most of the series' space combat with dinosaurs, temples, puzzles and a magical staff.
By Kader Star Fox Adventures 
Nintendo is highlighting Star Fox Adventures in its latest Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack update for Switch 2. The original GameCube title is available through the service's Nintendo GameCube - Nintendo Classics library.
This is still Rare's 2002 game rather than a remake. Fox travels to Dinosaur Planet, teams up with Prince Tricky and fights primarily on foot using Krystal's Staff. The Arwing has not disappeared, but flight sequences occupy a much smaller part of the adventure.
Star Fox without much flying
That alone makes Adventures an unusual piece of the series. Its focus is exploration, melee combat and environmental puzzles rather than the rail-shooting structure associated with Star Fox and Star Fox 64.
The reason is baked into the game's history. Rare originally developed the project as Dinosaur Planet before it was transformed into a Star Fox title. Fox McCloud arrived, the world survived, and the resulting game never completely stopped feeling like those two ideas had been welded together.
That history is more interesting now than it was as a simple genre argument in 2002. Adventures captures a very particular moment in Rare's relationship with Nintendo while doing something almost no other Star Fox entry attempted at this scale.
There is a widescreen option, but you have to switch it on
Nintendo confirms that the Nintendo Classics release supports a 16:9 screen mode. It can be enabled through the Options menu on the title screen.
The company is not presenting the game as a remaster and has not announced a larger graphical overhaul alongside this release. The widescreen mode is therefore the clearest display-related addition Nintendo is specifically calling out.
One of Rare's last Nintendo chapters
Star Fox Adventures also arrived at an awkwardly memorable point in company history. Rare developed the GameCube title before Microsoft acquired the studio in 2002, making the game closely associated with the end of Rare's long Nintendo era.
It also introduced Krystal to the released Star Fox series and placed Fox himself in a type of adventure dramatically removed from the usual Lylat System dogfights.
That makes this a useful addition to a retro subscription library even before nostalgia enters the equation. Star Fox Adventures is not simply another version of a familiar formula.
GameCube classics remain a Switch 2 benefit
Access requires both a Nintendo Switch 2 and a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership. Nintendo's GameCube catalogue is part of the Switch 2 version of the Classics service.
No new campaign content or mechanical overhaul has been announced for Star Fox Adventures here. It remains the single-player action-adventure Rare released in 2002, now considerably easier to revisit without finding a GameCube and an old disc.