Wild Blue Skies Key Art
Image: Chuhai Labs, Vitei Backroom & Balor Game

Nintendo might have beaten Chuhai Labs to the punch with the Star Fox 64 remake, but don't go writing off Wild Blue Skies in a dogfight involving actual dogs. What you're looking at here is a classic partially-on-rails arcade space shooter with a cast of furry folk and all the lasers and explosions you need in your daily life. It's also out today on Steam, after a couple strong Next Fest showings.

This is more than just a Star Fox imitator. Wild Blue Skies' core development team includes several people from Argonaut Software, the UK studio that did most of the work on the original Star Fox and the unreleased Star Fox 2. So, they know their stuff. They've got a whole new cast of spacefaring critter-folk behind the flight-sticks, but this is very much the OG crew playing the hits.

While the Star Fox remake has gone all-in on pseudo-realism with scrunkly virtual puppets for its 3D cutscenes, Wild Blue Skies goes for more of a western Saturday morning cartoon look, with clean cel-shading and some sharp cutscenes and character art, although the character designs don't QUITE have the sauce that I'd expect from a real dyed-in-the-wool furry artist.

While I've yet to play the full version of Wild Blue Skies, I played through the demo (which is thankfully still available) several times, and it comes pretty dang close to hitting those Star Fox high-notes, with decent voicework, bright aesthetics, and short but focused stages. That said, I still reckon that Ex-Zodiac (still in early access) might hit closer to the mark for me, but again, I'm still yet to play the full game.

You can beat me to the punch and try it first if you're feeling bold... or similarly liked the demo. Wild Blue Skies is out now for £14/$15. No launch discounts, but you can get a bit extra off if you buy it alongside Duskfade, a promising-looking Kingdom Hearts-inspired platform adventure that just launched today, too.