After all these years of speculation, rumors, and hearsay, the long-fabled F-Zero Virtual Boy spin-off, G-Zero, or Zero Racers, has been confirmed to have been in active development for the console before it famously flopped. It has been stated that the space-ship flying spin-off to the original SNES futuristic racer was actually “100% complete” before being canceled.
In an interview with lost game sleuths Did You Know Gaming, Ex-Nintendo of America localizer Jim Wornell explained that “Zero Racers was done… it was complete.” He claimed that Nintendo had created a “complete manual, package, and label” for the canceled game and that it even “went through lot check” and “had an ESRB rating.”
Zero Racers was going to feature Captain Falcon, Jody Summer, James McCloud, and potentially Pico, piloting spacecraft racing in three-dimensional tunnels rather with full 3D movement. Jody Summers and James McCloud survived the scrapping of Zero Racers and were ultimately added as playable racers in F-Zero X on the Nintendo 64.
It’s always a shame when a game is canceled, especially learning about another entry into a series that has been dormant since 2004. It’s no surprise that Zero Racers didn’t release, though, as the Virtual Boy was a commercial failure, and Nintendo didn’t get back into 3D until its 3DS handheld. With the 3DS eShop closing in March 2023, too, there’s no chance of a last-minute release for the canceled Virtual Boy F-Zero spin-off, neat as that would be.
