After 19 years without a mainline release, Nintendo has confirmed through its big September Direct that F-Zero is finally making a comeback, although probably not how you wanted it to.
There's no group of Nintendo fans who have it quite as bad as those waiting for a new F-Zero game. Captain Falcon can pop up in any Smash Bros. game he likes and his world has even featured in Mario Kart 8, but the Big N has seemingly had no interest in doing a completely new game, even after so many years since the last release.
Well, after tons of requests from fans, Nintendo has sort of fulfilled that request with F-Zero 99, a battle royale take on the original game that looks similar to Pac-Man 99, Tetris 99, and Super Mario Bros. 99. As the name implies, F-Zero 99 has you racing against 98 other players to see who can come out on top, with each player having to manage their power meter for as long as possible.
All jokes about this not being the F-Zero game that fans were hoping to see aside, F-Zero 99 does look like a fun and interesting take on the original F-Zero, just like the other 99 games were. That being said, it might not be worth getting too attached to F-Zero 99, as every other 99 release has either been shut down or is scheduled to shut down, with Pac-Man 99 confirmed to be going offline this October. There's no reason to suggest it won't be the same scenario here.
As great as it is to finally see F-Zero return, this announcement doesn't come as too much of a surprise. Last week, reliable Nintendo insider Pyoro_X confirmed a few of the titles that were due to be shown off at the at-the-time unannounced Direct, including a new Mario vs. Donkey Kong title. To tease F-Zero, Pyoro_X said, "Let's just say fans of a certain MATLAB function will be happy with the upcoming Direct", which was, of course, a reference to the fzero function, a thing I knew without having to look it up.
Of course, many people were expecting a properly new F-Zero game to show up, rather than a battle royale version of the SNES game, but it's still nice to see the series make any kind of appearance in a Nintendo Direct. Let's just hope that it's the first of many and that 99 will renew interest in F-Zero and tempt the big N into making more for the long-dormant series.