Nintendo, of all companies, likes to celebrate the anniversaries of their franchises with new games or collections. Pictured above are Kirby's Dream Collection for his 20th annviersary, Super Mario All Stars Wii for Mario's 25th anniversary, New Super Luigi's U for Luigi's 30th anniversary and Super Mario Maker which featured some anniversary themed things as well. We also know due to rumors that they're planning on a Mario and Zelda 35th anniversary collections or something for the Switch, which got me thinking... maybe there's a chance of Captain Falcon showing up again?
It's been 17 years since the release of F-ZERO GX with the franchise's only showing very faint signs of life in the form of Smash stages and Mario Kart tracks, but I think if they're ever going to revive the IP, the 30th anniversary this year is the most likely place for it to happen. Some reasons why:
- As mentioned above, Nintendo is very likely working on collections for Mario and Zelda's anniversary. Sure, you can argue that they're bigger IPs than F-ZERO and you'd be right, but at least it's not unprecedented of them to celebrate anniversaries this way.
- With Mario Kart 9 likely not showing up until the next console, Nintendo has essentially a "free" slot for a racing game since they didn't have to do much for MK8D. A new F-ZERO wouldn't eat into MK8D's sales, instead capturing the AG-Racing fanbase that's desperate for new games to enjoy.
- While GX's sales can be used as an argument against the IP coming back, it's also not unprecedented for series to find much bigger success on Switch than on previous consoles. There's a whole generation of Nintendo fans that have been exposed to the IP in Smash / MK, SNES Mini, Switch Online, etc. and that they'd likely love to give it a shot.
- This happened:
Why give him the spotlight if there's nothing on the pipeline, huh?
So, personally, I think expecting some sort of return for the franchise is not out of the cards. I don't really expect a new game to be honest, as the series should have to prove itself worth reviving first, but a collection or remaster isn't out of the cards, imo. GX is already a beautiful game on emulators, they could probably get away with just an upres, some tweaking to the controls so it works on digital triggers and maybe online if they're feeling brave. What do you think?
