Did You Know Gaming has taken a look at another game that could have been at Nintendo with Star Fox Armada. Star Fox Armada was pitched internally at Retro Studios, and the pitch was made shortly after the release of Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze and would have released on the Wii U. The pitch was unsuccessful, however, and the game ultimately never came to be.
The plan was to use a visual approach similar to the puppet designs that Nintendo used in promotional artwork and more for the original Star Fox, and would have taken place after Star Fox 64 timeline-wise, and was being approached as a reboot for the franchise by disregarding all other sequels to the N64 title.
The game would start following the defeat of Andross when General Pepper realizes that Corneria and the Lylat System need to be rebuilt, but the war with Andross left the Cornerian government with a lack of resources needed to rebuild the military and civilian sectors. General Pepper thus hires Star Fox, and their mission is to search nearby systems for allies and resources. During the game, Fox and his crew would discover a threat even more imposing than Andros
This game would have let Fox walk around inside the Great Fox, to select missions, interact with crew members, purchase upgrades and more, but once done with the Great Fox, all action would remain in-Arwing The game was intended to combine classic Star Fox 64 gameplay with new open-world and multiplayer mechanics, with single-player having players take on missions aboard the Great Fox and travel to planets, sectors, installations, and asteroid belts to complete them and earn money that can be given to Corneria, upgrade your ships, or buy new ones like the Land Master tank and Blue Marine submarine. Players could choose how many resources to send back to aid in Corneria’s reconstruction and how much to keep for themselves, while also having optional side quest missions planned that would lean into the more mercenary angle, with the goal of making the game less linear and more of a mission-based structure
Online gameplay was planned with players being able to attack other players during missions the way Star Wolf would appear in Star Fox 64, albeit as an optional mechanic, while another mechanic planned was a battle mode with dogfights. There were also plans for a co-op mode and co-op online and group online. and the online would let players team with a friend or group to complete missions in multiple ships with the goal of building your own squadron, hence the name Armada. There were plans for DLC as well, with the game being pitched as an evergreen title that would add more missions and ships, and planets over time and would be Nintendo’s first title made with this in mind before Splatoon took that role later.
The main gameplay would take place on the TV screen while the GamePad would feature the ship’s control panel, show current mission info, and also show which parts of the ship were damaged. Players could tap icons on the GamePad screen to repair these portions of the ship as they played. While for co-op, player 1 would use a Wii Remote and nunchuck while player 2 would use the GamePad to be the ship’s gunner with a 360-degree view, repair and control shields.
See the video below