Star Fox Zero Delayed to Nail "Platinum Feel," Dev Discusses 60 FPS on Both Screens

Star Fox Zero may be delayed for additional polish, but according to Platinum Games' Yusuke Hashimoto--who is co-directing the game alongside Shigeru Miyamoto's team at Nintendo--the game is already running at 60 frames per second on both the television screen and the Wii U GamePad.

"Those two screens, you can't find that anywhere else," Hashimoto told GameSpot during a recent interview. "When we were doing Bayonetta 2, we just used that screen as a touch pad. With Star Fox, Miyamoto originally had the idea that he wanted to create a shooting game that used both of these screens, and then we said, okay, how can we combine this with Star Fox? Just having to use those two screens makes things interesting.

"We've got them both moving at 60 fps, which is big for a lot of people, I think," he continued. "But I think that it's kind of a milestone in gaming, in a way. It's not something that we have done ourselves before at Platinum, and it's just not even something that has been done in gaming before. So it's a lot of new challenges."

Hashimoto added that the biggest challenge with Star Fox Zero has been making sure using both screens feels natural and interesting--and more importantly, fun. For Miyamoto's team as well as Hashimoto and his collaborators, creating a shooter using the GamePad controls is a new experience.

"We've been working with action games long enough," Hashimoto said. "We understand how the players play an action game, how they respond to an action game, how they'll move, what they'll do in the situational stuff. What we're making here now, it's totally a new learning experience for us, which is kind of fun to find out."

In mid-September, Miyamoto posted a heartfelt note to Facebook stating that Star Fox Zero had been delayed into 2016. GameSpot's own hands-on preview from E3 earlier this year describe controls and concepts that were a struggle to grow comfortable with. In his note, Miyamoto cited further polish to level design and cutscenes as well as to how players would utilize both the TV and GamePad screens. Hashimoto reiterated that quality is the reason for the delay, and added that his studio's task in the matter is to give the game more of that "Platinum feel."

"We want to make it feel as great as possible," Hashimoto said. "It's easy to say [it was delayed] to increase its quality, or whatever, but that entails a lot, whether it be visuals, or controls."

Star Fox Zero is currently slated to launch in 2016. Platinum Games' involvement with the title was announced at E3 earlier this year.