Classic SNES F-ZERO racing meets last-person standing gameplay.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/64842/f-zero-returns-today-as-the-next-99-player-title
During this morning's Nintendo Direct presentation, the next 99-player online game was revealed as F-ZERO 99, featuring SNES-style visuals. The game is exclusive to Nintendo Switch Online members, and it sees new gameplay mechanics added to enhance the experience. These include a Power Meter that not only represents your health but also can be used to offer a temporary boost of speed. Collisions between cars will generate Super Sparks that can be collected to create a path to the Skyway, a special shortcut above the track that can give you the time and space to get ahead of the pack.
F-ZERO 99 is launching today on the Switch eShop, but you may want to enjoy it while it lasts. As we've seen with Pac-Man 99 and Super Mario Bros. 35, these types of online games don't seem to have an overly long shelf life.
We haven't had a new F-Zero in 20 years and this is what we get? I'm getting Federation Force vibes here, where a franchise with a cult following gets ignored for years and then finally shows up again with a spinoff instead of a proper sequel. I'm not even on NSO so I can't play it.
Not that this specific game is necessarily a bad idea, it's just the PR of it. Make a new F-Zero game and then later this or even a remake of an F-Zero alongside it and it's fine. But instead it's like you didn't give the fans what they asked for but act like you did, which pisses them off more. Spin-offs are for healthy franchises that get regular releases, not dormant franchises where each release is an event.
What fans though? The reason F-Zero hasn't had a game in 20 years is because the original on the SNES was by far the best selling game in the franchise and every sequel, sold worse and worse. The original SNES game sold close to 3 million copies, while the N64 sequel barely passed 1 million, despite the N64 game being a huge upgrade in players and content. Then you have GX which has even more content, and was obviously very expensive to make, sell even less. It was one of the few Nintendo games on the Gamecube that couldn't even cross the one million mark. Then you get the two GBA games based off the anime which were two of the worst selling Nintendo games of all time.
So an actual new game had no chance of realistically happening. It was always either going to be a remaster of GX, or something like this. I'd argue that something like F-Zero 99 is a much better way of getting people interested in the series then a remaster of GX. F-Zero 99 allows 99 people to race at once in fast paced races that can end in people dying, or even killing their fellow racers is going to bring a lot more attention, especially with videogame streamers that have millions of views. This is going to cause a lot more people who've never played an F-Zero before to become interested and try this out.
In comparison an F-Zero GX remaster would have been lucky if it could even get a dozen racers online, and that's assuming Nintendo would even be willing to spend the money on adding online play to such a remaster for a game that didn't sell that well back in the day. Outside of people with Gamecube nostalgia, an F-Zero GX remaster would not have gotten the attention that F-Zero 99 will probably have in the future once more word of mouth gets out.
Seriously, anyone that wants a new F-Zero should be happy that F-Zero 99 now exist. If it's successful enough then maybe Nintendo might seriously consider making a new game, because otherwise they have no reason to.
As for F-Zero GX, word on the street was that it crossed 1.5 million and this knowledge came about 5 years ago from Nagoshi himself. Here's Nintendo Life's article (https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/08/sega_wanted_to_impress_nintendo_with_f-zero_gx_despite_losing_the_hardware_war) in which he states it at that amount and being proud of the sales for it. F-Zero GX also made the list of Player's Choice games on the GameCube and had some copies made with the yellow branding which meant it was at least a million seller. Considering GameCube console sales were much lower compared to SNES and most other Nintendo consoles, the fact that GX did about half the SNES sales is actually a positive thing showing why the demand is there for a follow-up entry.