Konami plan new Contra game reveal at E3 suggests leak

Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic movie in the works, but what about a new game?

When Konami kicked out Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, and all but gave up making new video games, many fans probably imagined that they were dooming themselves to financial ruin.

But as it turned out the last two years have been the company’s most profitable ever, thanks to its gambling and health club businesses.

But there are still occasional signs that it remembers being one of the most influential Japanese publishers of all time, and there’s now good reason to hope it’s planning a new Contra game.

The Contra series (also known as Gryzor and Probotector) is one of the most lauded shooter franchises of all time, although it never evolved beyond its 2D side-scrolling origins.

There have been occasional, low budget, new entries over the years though, and most of them have been pretty good, such as Contra: Shattered Soldier, Neo Contra, Contra 4, Contra ReBirth and, most recently, 2011’s Hard Corps: Uprising.

And now it looks like there’s going to be a new game, based on listings on German online retailer NETGAMES for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Switch versions of an unnamed Contra game.

The last couple of Contra games have been digital only, so it’s a bit of a surprise to see the game get a physical release at all – especially one that’s only a little under full price.

There are no other clues as to what the game is, but it does seem a very random thing for a retailer to list by accident.

Unless it somehow got confused by the upcoming Contra Anniversary Collection, the follow-up to the recent Castlevania Anniversary Collection – except that compilation never got a retail release either, so it seems very unlikely the lower profile Contra would.

More importantly, our own sources recently suggested to us that Konami would be announcing a new game at E3, that was either related to Gradius or Contra. So given this new information we’re going to conclude that it’s probably true and that a new Contra, of some sort, is going to be unveiled next month.