A former staff member at Nintendo recently shed some light on why there hasn’t been a new F-Zero game in almost two decades. The original F-Zero raced onto the Super NES back in 1990 and wowed gamers with its groundbreaking “Mode 7” pseudo-3D graphics and imaginative futuristic setting, paving the way for an entire genre of futuristic racing games like Wipeout and Star Wars Episode 1: Racer. The F-Zero series is set in the far-off year of 2560, where Earth’s contact with aliens eventually led to a new high-stakes sport where competitors race hyperfast hovercraft across intergalactic landscapes.
Four F-Zero sequels were released across various Nintendo systems, an anime adaptation was produced in the mid-2000s, and franchise protagonist Captain Falcon has since become a staple of the Super Smash Bros. series thanks to his infamous “Falcon Punch” attack. However, there hasn’t been a new F-Zero game released outside of Japan since 2004’s F-Zero GP Legend for the Game Boy Advance and a new release at all after F-Zero Climax that same year.
Years later, former Nintendo employee and F-Zero artist Takaya Imamura sat down for an interview with VGC to discuss various aspects of his career. During this interview, he provided his own reason for F-Zero’s absence from the gaming landscape over the past 19 years: Nintendo doesn’t want the series to compete with Mario Kart. Imamura pointed out that Mario Kart is Nintendo’s most popular racing game, and believes that a new F-Zero game would prove too costly.
While there might not be a new F-Zero game in Nintendo’s pipeline, there are rumors that at least one of the series’ past installments could yet see new life on the Switch. Back in March, word started to spread of an F-Zero GX remaster by Next Level Games, the studio behind the Luigi's Mansion and Mario Strikers franchises. A few months later, a reliable Nintendo leaker made a similar claim about F-Zero GX, but there is still no official announcement of such an update in the works.
Over the past few years, noted individuals like former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime have expressed the idea that Nintendo could revive the long-dormant F-Zero franchise as early as 2023, but Imamura doesn’t think that this is the case given the Big N’s current success with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. According to him, Nintendo doesn't want to risk dividing the market with two major racing titles for the Switch, so it might still be a long time before fans can blast through the gravity-defying world of F-Zero once again.
Source: VGC