Back in 2015, when Nintendo was struggling to make the Wii U — arguably their most gimmicky console ever — thrive, there was a rumor doing the rounds claiming that Criterion Games had been approached by Nintendo to develop a brand-new entry in the
F-Zero series.
Criterion Games is the studio in charge of developing the popular Burnout series, so it would have made a lot of sense to have Nintendo reaching out to them in order to bring the
F-Zero series back to life. It turns out, however, that fans of Nintendo's neglected futuristic racing series never got that rumored game. The reason? It seems that those rumors were not true at all.
During a recent interview with
Game Informer, Criterion Games found Alex Ward revealed that Nintendo approaching them to make an
F-Zero game simply never happened; more or less.
"
Once and for all, Nintendo didn’t come to Criterion and ask us to make F-Zero. Nothing of the sort at all. Complete false", said Ward when asked if the rumors about a new
F-Zero game by Criterion were true.
"
Somebody quite junior in Nintendo in Europe, who isn’t there anymore, sent me an email and said, ‘Hey, some of us were talking.’ Some of us – what does that mean? That could be the water cooler… And this guy just sent me an email out of the blue, so then I take that email and I replied and said, ‘Well, he must have maybe thought we were an independent company and we weren’t.’ We were wholly owned by EA. One, we’re owned by EA. Two, if you want to talk to EA – and those companies have all those discussions all the time – you have to contact this guy in EA and I gave him the email address. And that’s it."
So, there you have it. There was never any real intention, at least not from Nitnendo as a company itself, to approach Criterion Games to make a new F-
Zero game. As mentioned earlier,
F-Zero is one of Nintendo's most famously neglected franchises, and it doesn't seem like they want to revive it at all.
Hopefully Nintendo decides to bring the
F-Zero series back at some point but the latest entry in the series was released 15 years ago, so fans shouldn't hold their breath until Nintendo announces a new game.