Velan Studios is the team behind Nintendo’s new Star Fox remake
Velan Studios has been revealed as the developer of Nintendo’s new Star Fox game, and honestly, this is the kind of studio pairing we can at least take seriously.
The New York-based team was formed in 2016 by the founders of Vicarious Visions, the studio many players will remember from Tony Hawk’s and Skylanders. That does not automatically make every project a win, of course, but it does give Velan a real pedigree. We are not looking at a brand-new outfit trying to prove it can handle a major Nintendo property from scratch.
Velan has also already worked with Nintendo before. It partnered on Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit in 2020, which matters more than a lot of people may realize. When a studio gets a second shot with Nintendo, that usually says something about trust, communication, and the ability to deliver within very specific guardrails.
More recently, Velan developed Hot Wheels: Rift Rally and the canceled live service game Knockout City. That mix is interesting. It shows a studio willing to try different ideas, but it also means we are not dealing with a team that has spent the last decade doing one narrow thing. That can be a strength if the project needs flexibility, and a risk if consistency is what you care about most.
The bigger trust signal here, in our view, is the Nintendo connection. Velan says it has been working on Star Fox for a while and described the chance to bring Fox McCloud and crew to Switch 2 as an honor. That is studio marketing, sure, but it lines up with the kind of long-running collaboration that tends to happen when Nintendo is comfortable with a partner.
The game itself is a remake of Star Fox 64. It is due on June 25, and a demo arrived on the Nintendo eShop today. That gives players a chance to judge the result directly instead of just debating the studio choice from afar.
So should we trust Velan? Cautiously, yes. The studio has enough history, enough Nintendo experience, and enough recognizable work behind it to avoid the instant skepticism that would greet a completely unknown team. But trust is still earned on the screen, not in the press release. A remake like this lives or dies on feel, and that is where Velan will have to prove it belongs in the cockpit.
