PLAY ›ICONIC SERIES · 04 GAMESContra
Contra
Series
Run, gun, and survive the arcade action that made co-op legendary.
THE COMPLETE COLLECTION
Choose your game
4 handpicked Contra classics, ordered for easy discovery.
A world worth
returning to.
Run, gun, and survive the arcade action that made co-op legendary. This collection brings its essential entries together in one calm, considered place—each game paired with context, controls, and a direct route into play.
SERIES GUIDE
Understanding the Contra classics
Where the series began
Contra brought arcade intensity into the home through short stages, immediate controls, and campaigns built for repeated attempts. Its alien invasions move from open firefights to fortified bases and increasingly strange environments.
What defines these games
Eight-direction shooting and quick jumps create a compact vocabulary that each game tests relentlessly. Weapon upgrades offer dramatic power, but keeping them requires careful positioning and knowledge of the next enemy pattern.
Where to start
The NES Contra is the essential cooperative starting point. Alien Wars EX is a single-player portable remix for players who want denser 16-bit-style enemies and stages in shorter sessions.
Why these entries are here
The NES edition remains the clearest expression of Contra’s shared-screen home-console identity. Alien Wars EX complements it instead of duplicating it: revised stages, later-series material, and portable constraints create a different tempo. Putting them together makes both the continuity of the basic controls and the compromises of adaptation visible.
Contra games in this collection
The current Contra archive spans original releases from 1988 to 2002 and includes NES and SNES and GBA. Every entry links to a dedicated page with its developer, genre, controls, historical context, and availability status. The scope is intentionally selective so that each addition contributes a distinct reason to explore the series instead of simply increasing a platform count.
ContraNES · 1988
Fight through a relentless alien invasion in a defining two-player action game.
Super ContraNES · 1990
Return for a tougher alien assault with new weapons, vertical stages, and relentless two-player action.
Contra III: The Alien WarsSNES · 1992
Battle across land, sky, and city in the explosive 16-bit pinnacle of the Contra series.
Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EXGBA · 2002
Push through a portable remix of The Alien Wars with relentless enemies, heavy weapons, and rebuilt stages.