This week, Star Fox Zero releases for the Wii U, ending the decade-long hiatus that this long-running series has had to endure. The franchise has taken players on many adventures through space by putting them in the role of an Arwing pilot, starting with the very first title in 1993 for the Super Nintendo.

Series protagonist Fox McCloud, and the Star Fox series as a whole, was inspired by Shigeru Miyamoto’s visit to the Fushimi Inari-Taisha shrine, located in Kyoto, Japan. The shrine is in honor of the deity Inari, whom is associated with foxes. The shrine is surrounded by red arches called Torii, and Inari is often depicted as having the ability to fly, giving Miyamoto the idea of a fox that would fly through arches. Fox’s design also includes a red neckerchief, which the statues at the Inari shrine often have as well.

The first Star Fox title was released in 1993 for the Super Nintendo and immediately stood out from the pack in terms of looks; it used a “Super FX” chip to help the system create 3D graphics in a 2D-dominated era of gaming. The game also introduced the three main supporting characters of Peppy Hare, Slippy Toad, and Falco Lombardi; Falco in particular has become a massively popular character on level with Fox himself.

Star Fox 64, the follow-up to the 1993 release, hit the Nintendo 64 console in 1997. It introduced a multiplayer mode, allowing up to four people to play at a time, plus had levels located on land and under the ocean for more varied gameplay. The first Star Fox title on the GameCube, Star Fox Adventures, came out in 2002. Unlike the earlier titles, which were on-rail shooters, Adventures instead was an action-adventure game in a similar style to the Legend of Zelda series. Despite the change, Adventures was critically well-received.

Two more games in the series, Star Fox: Assault and Star Fox Command were released in 2005 and 2006 for the GameCube and Nintendo DS, respectively. These games returned to the Arwing-focused gameplay that was present in the earliest games of the series. However, after that, the series went totally quiet – save for a 2011 remake of Star Fox 64 for the Nintendo 3DS.

The 10-year hiatus is one of the longest that any Nintendo franchise has ever seen, though that’s thankfully ending with Star Fox Zero’s release for the latest Nintendo console. The series takes some ideas that were first introduced for the canceled Star Fox 2 and brings them to the next generation; Zero also includes a tower defense-style side game called Star Fox Guard. Though it’s been quite a while, Fox and the gang seem to be back for the long run as this franchise goes forward.