During the development of the original Star Fox, character designer Takaya Imamura originally wanted to make the characters generic humans and aliens, similar to his character designs from F-Zero. It was Shigeru Miyamoto who convinced him to instead make them anthropomorphic animals, as he wanted the game's aesthetic to stand out from every other science fiction property coming out at the time.

Fox in particular being a fox was inspired by the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine located near Nintendo's offices.

A 3D polygonal model based on the Arwing from the first Star Fox was discovered within Star Fox 64 3D's files. It is not known if it had anything to do with Q-Games' pitch to Nintendo of a Star Fox SNES remake that was ultimately rejected, though it's worth pointing out that that occurred after Star Fox 64 3D's release.

While artist Takaya Imamura would be responsible for the character designs of the Star Fox team, all but one member of the team would be named by Star Fox's programmer, Dylan Cuthbert:

• Fox's surname, McCloud, was inspired by Connor MacLeod from the 1986 film Highlander, as Cuthbert wanted to give him a "cool sounding name" and wanted it to be based on his piloting abilities.
• Peppy's name was based on his characteristic of having a lot of energy despite his old age.
• Slippy's name was based on his clumsy, slippery characteristics.

According to Imamura, Falco Lombardi's name was inspired by Carlo Rambaldi, a famed Italian special effects and make-up artist who worked on films such as Alien and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

The hand-operated puppets utilized in Japanese promotional material for the first Star Fox game, as well as the cover of one of its guidebooks, were created by Takashi Yamazaki, a Japanese filmmaker and visual effects supervisor best known internationally for his 2023 film "Godzilla Minus One".

Argonaut Software's Starglider games released in the 1980s, which were first-person combat flight simulators rendered with wireframe vector graphics, inspired them to come up with a prototype that would eventually lead to the creation of the first Star Fox. They created a prototype for the Nintendo Entertainment System codenamed as "NESGlider" that was based on the original game, utilizing a similar method to accelerate graphics to how the Super FX chip for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System later would. When they showed this prototype to Nintendo in 1990, they were instead advised to port and develop the game for the then-upcoming SNES. After Argonauts did that, Nintendo declared that this was the best 3D graphics the console could produce and that they hadn't designed the SNES with 3D games in mind. Argonaut staff suggested that if they wanted better, then they should let them design a 3D chip for them, and thus the Super FX chip was born.

According to character designer Takaya Imamura, each of the original Star Fox team members were modeled after his fellow Nintendo staff members at the time:

• Fox was based on Shigeru Miyamoto, with Miyamoto said to have a fox-like face.
• Falco was based on Tsuyoshi Watanabe, as the development team laughed over how his nose stuck out like a beak.
• Peppy was based on Katsuya Eguchi, with Eguchi said to have a mouth like a hare.
• Slippy was based on Yoichi Yamada, with Yamada said to have large, round eyes.

Imamura has also stated that he based Andross on his "boss at the time". It remains unknown who at Nintendo he is specifically talking about, though it's been long rumored that Andross was intended as a caricature of then-Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi, who was known for his cutthroat and ruthless ways. However, it's also been speculated that Imamura is referring to Hiroshi Ikeda, the then-manager of Nintendo R&D4 (later EAD) who was also Miyamoto's boss, though it's worth pointing out that Ikeda had stepped down from his position in 1992.

In the original Star Fox on SNES, Venom was once a lush, green world like Corneria until Andross, exiled for dangerous experiments, invaded and polluted it, enslaving its inhabitants and turning it into a militarized wasteland. Star Fox 2's Expert mode briefly showed Venom returning to its green state, suggesting terraforming.

Star Fox 64 retconned this, portraying Venom as a desolate world from the start; Andross was banished there by Corneria specifically because of its harsh conditions. However, Star Fox Command later revealed Andross had actually built a terraforming device to turn Venom into a green, livable planet for his descendants, reversing his SNES role from destroyer to would-be savior.

The Official Star Fox Missile File Printout guidebook released alongside the original Star Fox on SNES in Japan mentions two pilots, Desla Koba and Bear Noguccini, who don't appear anywhere in the game proper. They were said to be two of the most capable members in the Cornerian Defense Force, who had previously embarked in cutting-edge Arwing scouting vessels.

Both were said to have mysteriously disappeared. It is said later on in the guidebook that Desla Koba had disappeared in the Asteroid Belt when he came across a mysterious giant space bird, and upon trying to inspect it, he ended up being warped into another dimension, known in-game as "Out of this Dimension". Similarly, Bear was last seen in Sector Y, where he encountered the mysterious space whale before losing all contact, never to be seen again.

Desla Koba would actually be mentioned again in Star Fox 64's official Japanese guidebook, with a similar backstory that he had in the Missile File Printout guidebook. Here, it is said that he led a unit conducting an investigation in Meteo (SF64's equivalent to the Asteroid Belt from SF1), only for communications to suddenly be cut off as he'd apparently entered the stage's warp zone, which simultaneously led to him crashing his aircraft on the nearby planet of Katina. This was said to have occurred more than 10 years prior to the events of Star Fox 64.

Both Desla Koba and Bear Noguccini's surnames seem to come from two of the editors of the Mission File Printout guidebook: Hitoshi Kobayashi and Yukata Noguchi.

According to an interview with Dylan Cuthbert in the British Official Nintendo Magazine, the renaming of the game from Star Fox to Starwing in European territories was done to avoid confusing the game with an unrelated German company called Star Vox, as the letter "V", in some languages like Dutch and German, is pronounced as the letter "F".

During the development of Star Fox, Shigeru Miyamoto began conceiving a 3D Mario game using the SNES' Super FX chip, but contrary to popular belief, a build using the chip was never developed. According to Argonaut Software programmer Dylan Cuthbert, the Super FX chip was codenamed "Super Mario FX" during its development, and the original line of chips have the name "MARIO CHIP" printed on them, which is possibly where this misconception stems from.

The go-to term for the initial conflict of the Star Fox series, as told in three different installments (Star Fox on SNES, Star Fox 64, and Star Fox Zero), is the "Lylat Wars". This name originates from the original PAL release of Star Fox 64, where it was renamed to Lylat Wars due to trademark issues (similarly to why the first Star Fox was renamed to "Starwing" there as well). In comparison, its 3DS remake, Star Fox 64 3D, would retain the Star Fox 64 moniker in all regions. Nintendo would later actually canonize the "Lylat Wars" moniker as the official name of the conflict against Andross' forces in the opening prologue to Star Fox Zero.

There is a possibility General Pepper is named after The Beatles' album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". He is also wearing an outfit similar to a character on the album cover.

The ships the player pilots, the Arwing, got its name due to it being shaped like the letter A.

Although this game started the franchise, it's often ignored and is not usually considered canon. The recap present in the Star Fox: Assault instruction manual ignores the original game and begins the series at Star Fox 64. However, the official Star Fox Adventures Japanese site stated that the events of the Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 games are two sides of the same coin, implying that they could directly co-exist within the same timeline since Star Fox 64 is a reboot of Star Fox.

Fichina, the ice planet that was introduced in Star Fox 64, is infamously erroneously called Fortuna in the English version of the game. Fortuna was previously the name of the jungle planet from Star Fox on SNES filled with monstrous and primordial creatures. It was also infamously dubbed "the Dinosaur Planet", years before the Star Fox series would incorporate another Dinosaur Planet with Star Fox Adventures.

However, looking through leaked SF64 files from the Gigaleak, there does seem to be evidence that Nintendo dubbed Fichina as Fortuna for most of SF64's development, only to change the name to Fichina at the tail end of it. Almost all of the source code refers to it as Fortuna, and the internal file system has “FO” appended to all of the stage’s assets. The image file Nintendo provided for the stage name to be translated is also labeled FO_E_FO. With the decision to rename it to Fichina seemingly being a last minute one, it's possible Nintendo of America were not brought up to speed by Nintendo's Japanese branch of this lore change when they were originally localizing SF64.

Nonetheless, Nintendo has since firmly established Fichina and Fortuna (as it was in the SNES game) as being their own distinct planets, with both appearing together in Star Fox: Assault and Star Fox Zero. Strangely, in the former game, Fortuna's Japanese name フォーチュナ (Fōchuna) was slightly modified to フォーチュナー (Fōchunā), which would translate into "Fortuner" in English.

During the secret "Out of this Dimension" level, listening carefully to the music that plays throughout reveals the level's theme to be a distorted version of Johann Strauss II's "Voices of Spring" waltz. The giant slot machine's battle theme is a mix of several folk songs: the Japanese folk song "Yuki", the American folk song "When the Saints Go Marching In", and the German folk song "Hänschen Klein". As the fake credits roll after defeating the giant slot machine, a distorted rendition of the credits theme can then be heard.

Some of the characters during Star Fox Assault's briefing cutscenes feature details in the back that are typically unseen by the player, since the models are normally only viewed from the front. The only way around this is to move the camera using an emulator.

One such example is Beltino Toad, Slippy Toad's father. Rotating his model around reveals his coat has the logo for Space Dynamics, the manufacturer for many of the Star Fox team's vehicles, such as the Arwing, Great Fox and Landmaster.

This particular logo had actually first appeared in the official Star Fox Mission File Printout guidebook released for the original Star Fox on SNES in Japan, back in 1993.

According to Takaya Imamura in a 2002 interview published in Nintendo Dream magazine, he was asked how he came to create the game? He responded:

The Aparoids are unique in Star Fox's rogue gallery in that they're the only main enemy forces, at least within the official game canon (which includes "Farewell Beloved Falco", the manga interlude between Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Adventures) to have absolutely no connections or ties to Andross whatsoever:

• In Farewell Beloved Falco, Captain Shears, despite being affiliated with the Cornerian army, was revealed to be a turncoat seeking to revive Andross through cloning.

• In Star Fox Adventures, General Scales and the SharpClaw were revealed to be the unwilling pawns of Andross' ghost, who manipulated them as well as Fox to revive himself using the power of the Krazoa.

• In Star Fox Command, the Emperor Anglar and his Anglar Army are revealed to be bioweapons created by Andross in secret within Venom's acidic oceans.

In particular, the Aparoid Queen is the only final boss in all of the Star Fox series to either not just be Andross again (Star Fox, Star Fox 2, Star Fox 64/Star Fox 64 3D, Star Fox Adventures, Star Fox Zero), nor a creation of his (Star Fox Command).

As it currently stands, barring Star Fox 64 3D, Macbeth is the only planet from Star Fox SNES and Star Fox 64 to not have reappeared in future games.

• Corneria, Fichina, Katina, and Fortuna would reappear in Star Fox Assault. Titania and Zoness would appear in Star Fox Assault's multiplayer mode as well.

• Corneria, Fichina, Katina, Solar, Aquas, Titania and Venom would reappear once again in Star Fox Command.

• Corneria, Fortuna, Fichina, Zoness, Titania and Venom would also reappear in Star Fox Zero.