Star Fox Adventures gets a native port for Windows, Linux and macOS

Star Fox Adventures can now run natively on PC, more than 20 years after Fox McCloud first landed on GameCube. The project is called Foxhollow, and it brings Rare’s 2002 adventure to Windows, Linux and macOS without using Dolphin or another GameCube emulator. It’s a genuine native port built from decompiled game code, though players still need their own copy of Star Fox Adventures to supply the original game files. More importantly for anyone who wants to play rather than study the engineering behind it, Foxhollow is already fully playable. It supports ISO and RVZ game images, existing GameCube save files and mods. Development remains active too, so the current release isn’t being treated as a finished one-off build. For Star Fox fans, it means one of the series’ strangest games has a new home on modern computers.

This is the strange Star Fox game

Star Fox Adventures has always been the odd one in Nintendo’s space-faring series. Rather than spending most of its running time inside an Arwing, Fox spends much of the game exploring Dinosaur Planet on foot. He fights enemies with a staff, solves environmental puzzles, collects items and works his way through large areas packed with dinosaurs.

There are Arwing sections, of course. This is still Star Fox. They’re smaller pieces of a much larger adventure, though, rather than the main event. The result has far more in common with the 3D action-adventure games of its era than Star Fox 64. Fox runs through temples, caves, forests and settlements, picks up new abilities and travels with Prince Tricky, a young dinosaur companion who helps solve puzzles.

Krystal appears here too, years before becoming a regular face in later Star Fox games. It remains a curious entry in the series, and one with a development story nearly as unusual as the finished game.

Rare started it as Dinosaur Planet

Star Fox Adventures didn’t begin life as a Star Fox project. Rare originally developed Dinosaur Planet for Nintendo 64, with an original cast and setting. During production, the project moved to GameCube and became part of the Star Fox series. Fox McCloud stepped into the lead role, though plenty of Dinosaur Planet’s original ideas survived into the finished release.

Nintendo published Star Fox Adventures in 2002. Its release came at a significant point for Rare. Microsoft acquired the studio during the same year, making Star Fox Adventures Rare’s final major console release for Nintendo before the company changed hands.

The GameCube version was visually ambitious for its time. Fox’s animated fur received plenty of attention, along with reflective water, large environments and detailed character models. Rare used the new hardware to produce something far removed from the Nintendo 64 games carrying the Star Fox name. Now it can run without a GameCube.

Foxhollow puts the original game on modern PCs

Foxhollow isn’t a remake and it isn’t trying to turn Star Fox Adventures into a different game. The levels remain the same. The combat remains the same. So do the puzzles, characters, cinematics and progression. What changes is the way the game runs.

Foxhollow produces a version made for current desktop operating systems instead of recreating GameCube hardware through emulation. Windows, Linux and macOS are supported. Players supply their own Star Fox Adventures game data. Nintendo and Rare’s original assets aren’t included with Foxhollow.

Once installed, the port can work with ISO and RVZ images. Existing GameCube saves are supported too, which is a particularly handy detail for anyone with an old playthrough sitting on a memory card dump. You don’t need to abandon your old save simply to use the PC version.

Mods are part of the package

Foxhollow comes with mod support, opening the door to changes beyond the untouched GameCube release. The modding side remains in development, so this isn’t a giant catalogue of conversions and replacement packs from day one. The groundwork is already present, though, including support for changing game assets and altering parts of the original game.

For most players, the bigger attraction is simpler. Star Fox Adventures can now run as a native desktop game across three major operating systems. No Dolphin window. No GameCube emulation setup. You still need legitimate game data, and Foxhollow isn’t pretending to be a remaster. It doesn’t replace Nintendo’s original release either. It’s another way to run the same game.

Fox has found another platform

Game decompilation projects have become much more visible in recent years, with several older console releases gaining native versions for modern systems. Star Fox Adventures is an interesting addition to the list. This isn’t a tiny arcade game or a short technical demo. Rare’s adventure is a full 3D GameCube release with large areas, cinematics, combat, puzzles and a sizeable campaign.

Foxhollow now has the entire game running from start to finish on Windows, Linux and macOS, complete with GameCube save compatibility and mod support. Twenty-four years after its GameCube debut, Fox McCloud has landed on PC. And this time, there’s no emulator underneath him.