SPOILER WARNING: This article includes spoilers for various games in the Star Fox video game series.

Considering the broad nature of the “Type Shit” issue, I thought it would be fun to talk about a lesser-known topic. Thus, I want to take some time today to talk about Nintendo’s Star Fox franchise, which is now seeing something of a renaissance with Fox McCloud’s cameo in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026). Let’s take a trip to the planet Corneria for a moment—make sure your Arwings are all fueled up. 

Perhaps the most interesting part of Star Fox is the rivalry between the Star Fox team and Star Wolf, a rival squad of mercenaries hired by Andross, the series’s main antagonist. The conflict between the two teams has had its ups and downs throughout the series, going from being fierce adversaries to temporarily teaming up for a time.

Our story begins with the Star Wolf team’s first official appearance in Star Fox 64 (1997), although they were originally slated to debut in the cancelled Star Fox 2—more on that later. In Star Fox 64, both Star Fox and Star Wolf consisted of four members, each with their own set of motivations and grudges against specific pilots from the opposing squadron.

Here, Team Star Fox consists of Fox McCloud, the team leader, Falco Lombardi, the sarcastic ace pilot, Peppy Hare, Fox’s mentor, and Slippy Toad, the group’s mechanic. Fox is put into a difficult position in Star Fox 64, tasked with leading the group following the disappearance and presumed death of his father James.

James McCloud was the original leader of Star Fox, hired by General Pepper to work alongside Peppy and Pigma Dengar to investigate Andross’s suspicious activity in the time since his exile to the planet Venom. This mission would have lasting consequences for everyone involved, with Pigma giving up James and Peppy to Andross in exchange for money. Peppy managed to escape, but James was not so lucky, assumed to be dead after being captured by Andross.

Some time later, Pigma joined Star Wolf, Andross’s gang of space pirates that were hired to take out the Star Fox team. Wolf O’Donnell is the leader of this group, himself wanted by the Cornerian army for a series of crimes which may include James McCloud’s disappearance. Over the course of the Star Fox series, Wolf has a few different lineups of sidekicks to bring along with him when he needs to fight Fox and his team.

Leon Powalski, the Star Wolf team’s assassin, is Wolf’s right-hand man who has been present for every iteration of Star Wolf alongside Wolf himself. To get him off his back, Andross sends his nephew, Andrew Oikonny, to round out the lineup; Andrew annoys everyone—including his teammates—with his entitled personality, reminding us of the negative effects of nepotism. Together, Wolf, Leon, Pigma, and Andrew cause havoc for Star Fox on behalf of Andrew’s uncle, each fixating on a particular member of the Star Fox team for one reason or another.

Fox and Wolf’s rivalry is rather self-explanatory, being the leaders of their respective space pilot teams. Falco and Leon seem to have some unexplained prior history, but they routinely trade jabs with one another whenever their paths cross, likely as a result of their similarly hot-headed personalities. Peppy and Pigma’s feud is among the most well-documented of these individual beefs due to Pigma’s betrayal from years earlier, while Slippy and Andrew are often pitted against one another by default because of their statuses as the weakest pilots of their groups.

Despite the varying degrees of lore behind each pilot’s individual feuds with their respective counterparts, it is clear that they do not like one another. They square off in space three times across various planets in 64—once on Fichina, again on Bolse, and a third time on Venom. Each time, the Star Wolf team provokes Star Fox a bit at the beginning, with Andrew telling Slippy to “stick to the pond” and Pigma taunting Fox and Peppy about James, among other barbs (Star Fox 64). Due to the game’s cartoony nature, the characters are presented more comedically, speaking in one-liners when they appear on-screen via the Arwing ship’s radio system.

This would not be the case moving forward, though—the characters get a lot more depth in 2005’s Star Fox: Assault through short cutscenes and increased dialogue, giving players a greater insight into their motivations and goals in the never-ending fight for control of the Lylat system.

Fox defeats Andross for good at the end of Star Fox Adventures (2002), although Star Wolf does not make an appearance in the game’s story. Here, Fox meets a new love interest, Krystal, who eventually becomes a full member of the reformed Star Fox team upon Peppy’s retirement as a pilot. Taking place one year after Adventures, Assault sees a new threat enter the fray, forcing Star Fox and Star Wolf putting aside their differences for the time being to deal with the greater enemy at hand.

Star Fox is first called into duty when Andrew assumes control of Andross’s remaining troops on Venom, launching a rebellion against the Cornerian army. Wolf had dismissed Andrew from Star Wolf by this point, likely tired of Andrew’s constant nepo baby behavior as the nephew of the late Andross. Andrew has always been full of himself, and his ego is put on display here at the beginning of Assault.

Serving as the first boss in Assault, Andrew fights Star Fox in a robotic mech of his face and arms, similar to his uncle’s usual appearance as a domineering floating head. Despite proclaiming that he is “the one and only true heir to the great emperor Andross,” Andrew is wiped out moments later by the Aparoids, the central antagonists of Assault’s story—a symbolic end to Andross’s reign (Star Fox: Assault).

Some time later, Star Fox crosses paths with Pigma on the planet Katina when they go after one of the Aparoids’ Core Memory units to research the species further to learn how to stop them. In one of his many moments of greed, Pigma swipes the Core Memory unit before Fox can get to it in order to sell it on the black market. Star Fox later tracks Pigma to the Sargasso Space Zone, where they encounter Star Wolf and engage in battle with them.

Unbeknownst to Fox and co., Pigma was kicked out of Star Wolf due to his greedy ways, with Wolf stating that his crew would have “driven Pigma out” if he had tried to return to the team (Star Fox: Assault). Wolf has much more of a tough guy persona in Assault, with Leon taking on a deranged, blood-thirsty demeanor, in contrast to his cockier side from 64.

Seeing as both Andrew and Pigma are no longer aligned with Star Wolf, Wolf and Leon are joined instead by Panther Caroso, a self-absorbed, flirtatious pilot who repeatedly goes after Krystal. Amidst one of his many attempts to flirt with Krystal, Panther reveals that Pigma has gone to Fichina.

When they eventually find Pigma, Star Fox is horrified at the sight of him—infected by the Aparoids, Pigma becomes one with the insectoid fiends, assimilating into a freakish robot. A brief return to Sauria—the Dinosaur Planet from Adventures—leaves Corneria vulnerable to the Aparoids’ advances, who capture General Pepper and take control over his body.

Sensing a common threat, Star Wolf comes to Star Fox’s aid to help take down the Aparoids, teaming up to face off against the possessed General Pepper. Still in control of his mind, General Pepper tells them to shoot him down no matter what, sending the Star Fox team into a mental and moral tailspin. 

Wolf serves a pivotal role in this fight, encouraging Fox to not hesitate and give it his all while temporarily giving him a space to fire his machine gun on the wing of the Wolfen ship. Once General Pepper is defeated, Wolf reminds Fox that he did not come to save him, but leaves by telling Fox to not waver and act against the Aparoids. Wolf only helped in this mission to ensure that he could eliminate Fox himself one day, but he still demonstrated great character in assisting one of his hated rivals in an effort to take down a looming threat.

Star Wolf remains allied with Star Fox at the Aparoid Homeworld near the end of the story, fighting off the Aparoid forces while Star Fox heads for the core to battle the Queen. Our heroes succeed against the Aparoid Queen, wiping her out despite her attempts to fool them by impersonating Peppy, General Pepper, Pigma, and James throughout the decisive battle.

By the events of Star Fox Command, the Star Fox team has disbanded, with Fox serving as its last remaining pilot. Falco is now an independent mercenary, Slippy is engaged to his fiancée Amanda, Peppy succeeds General Pepper as Cornerian army commander, and Krystal joins Star Wolf after Fox kicks her off his team out of concern for her safety. Fox goes in alone to fight against the Anglars, a race of fish-like creatures who conquer Corneria.

Due to the many branching pathways players can take in Command, there are a plethora of different characters you can play as along the way. Depending on your choices in the story, you are able to take control of a wide variety of both returning pilots and some new pilots—finally, a chance to play as someone other than Fox! In addition to the returning Star Fox and Star Wolf pilots (sans Pigma and Andrew), you can also play as Peppy’s daughter, Lucy Hare, Bill Grey, Katt Monroe (two friends of the Star Fox team who occasionally fight alongside you in Star Fox 64), and Andross’s grandson, Dash Bowman. 

Command has a questionable place within the series’ canon, as there are nine possible endings to the game’s story. In one such ending, “The Anglar Emperor,” Fox does not tell Krystal about his feelings for her, and she later leaves Star Fox to join Star Wolf, becoming one of the fiercest pilots in the galaxy. 

The “Star Wolf Returns!” ending also sees Krystal join Star Wolf, but things play out a bit differently here—the Star Wolf team become lauded heroes, praising Wolf, Leon, and Panther. However, Krystal is constantly attacked by the public for betraying Star Fox, eventually leaving Star Wolf to become a bounty huntress named Kursed.

Command would ultimately be the final new entry in the Star Fox franchise for some time, as well as the last entry overall until 2011. That year, Nintendo released a 3D remake of Star Fox 64 for the 3DS, which was aptly named Star Fox 64 3D. While this did help to rejuvenate interest in the series, there were no new developments in the conflict between Star Fox and Star Wolf.

Much like 64 3D, the Wii U’s Star Fox Zero did not do much to push the rivalry to new heights. Released in 2016, Zero was something of a reimagining of 64, providing familiarity to fans while simultaneously frustrating them with the Wii U’s clunky control scheme. Nevertheless, we get the same old jabs between the classic Star Fox and Star Wolf crews, albeit this time with improved graphics. At least Pigma and Andrew are part of Star Wolf again, though.

Around this same time, fans were treated to one of the biggest unearthed gold mines in franchise history: Star Fox 2, which was shelved in 1995 after being fully completed, was officially released as part of the SNES Classic Edition in 2017. Small pieces of the game were leaked online in the 22 years prior to its official release, but it never saw the light of day in its completed form until this point. On top of Fox, Falco, Peppy, and Slippy (who all returned from the original game in 1993), the sequel also features two new members of the Star Fox team in Miyu and Fay, who would have preceded Krystal as the first female pilots in the series’ history.

Furthermore, Star Fox 2 was planned to serve as the debut of the Star Wolf team, which consisted of four members at the time: Wolf, Leon, Pigma, and Algy, the latter of whom is never seen again afterwards. This game introduced the branching paths that were later seen in 64 and the strategy gameplay from Command, giving players two pilots to work with when starting a campaign. 

Due to the SNES’s limited processing capabilities—even with the Super FX chip—you only get to fight against one Star Wolf pilot at a time, sometimes only fighting certain pilots on the Hard and Expert difficulty levels. Be that as it may, we still get to see some fascinating one-liners here, like Algy saying that he was told that “the Star Fox team was nothing” (Star Fox 2). We do not often get to witness cancelled games be brought to the public eye, and it’s quite compelling to see where some gameplay aspects of Star Fox 64 came from.

Speaking of which, the crews from 64 return to duke it out once more in the Nintendo Switch version of Starlink: Battle for Atlas (2018). While not an official Star Fox game, this portion of the Starlink campaign mode allows players to play as members of the Star Fox team, recreating classic battles from the Lylat Wars back in the Nintendo 64 days. Although Starlink features modern designs for members of the Star Fox and Star Wolf squadrons, it does little to add new and exciting moments to the teams’ ongoing rivalry, largely due to the fact that the Star Fox missions were simply meant as a side mode for Switch players.

All in all, I feel that there are a lot of riveting and hilarious moments from the Star Fox-Star Wolf feud, but much of it feels like it’s being rehashed from Star Fox 64 for the umpteenth time. Divisive gameplay mechanics aside, I feel that Assault and Command provided some good bits of character development for our fighter pilot teams, and I hope that Nintendo decides to build on this at some point in the future. Please, Nintendo—give us a game with more characters other than the ones from 64. I’m begging you.

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Works Cited

Star Fox 2. Directed by Katsuya Eguchi, Nintendo EAD / Argonaut Software / Nintendo, 2017. Super Nintendo Entertainment System game.

Star Fox 64. Directed by Takao Shimizu, Nintendo EAD / Nintendo, 1997. Nintendo 64 game.

Star Fox: Assault. Directed by Toshiyuki Nakanishi, Hideki Okazaki, and Yutaka Yoshida, Namco / Nintendo, 2005. Nintendo GameCube game.

Star Fox Command. Directed by Dylan Cuthbert, Q-Games / Nintendo EAD / Nintendo, 2006. Nintendo DS game.

Featured image by dalvenjah on the Wikimedia Commons.

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