Argonaut Games

But yeah, so this is the second game in the series.

You know, the first game, the original Star Fox, was a Super Nintendo game developed by Argonaut Software and, you know, was groundbreaking in its own right for using the Super FX chip to create the first sort of hardware-accelerated 3D experience on a home console.

and that was a 1993 game so the fact that this came out just a mere four years later on the 64 after they scrapped starfox 2 and then strangely re-released it on the um on the snes mini decades later is an interesting

story in its own right

I'd love to see it localized officially as opposed to all the fan translations and shit.

Drop that on NSO or sell this in a two-pack because the other thing I would love... to see some recognition of and certainly localization for is a game called X, aka Exu, which was made by Dylan Cuthbert and Argonaut Games.

And it is...

I own it.

Well, Ubisoft is part of it.

They were the publisher, but the original people were Argonaut Games.

But the interesting bit, this did get a re-release.

You know the people, Mod Retro, who made the new Game Boy, they made an EM64.

Mission Brief Star Fox to Star Fox 64 1993 Mission 1 Star Fox Pilot, your orders begin aboard the Super Nintendo, where Star Fox launched in Japan on 21st February 1993 and later that year in the West.

developed by Nintendo EAD in collaboration with British studio Argonaut Software.

The game was built around the revolutionary Super FX chip, which allowed the SNES to generate real-time 3D polygonal graphics.

You take the command of Fox McCloud and his R-Wing, leading the Starfox team through asteroid fields, enemy formations, and hostile planets before confronting the forces of Andross.

It just gave you a character people cared about and a really good way to disappoint them.

This history is important because in 2004, when Argonaut games shut down and two of its employees decided to found their own studio, they weren't just starting a small video game company.

They were starting it in a world where Batman had become toxic.

But first, I think you need to understand who these two people were.

Yes, they did.

If today's episode sent you deeper into the world of superhero games or Rocksteady's approach to game design, we've got plenty of ground already covered that connects directly to this story.

Rocksteady rose from the ashes of Argonaut Games.

We covered Argonaut's work back in episode 130 with Star Fox and episode 140 with King Arthur's World, two very different games that showed what that studio was capable of before shut down.