Konami is set to celebrate their 50th anniversary with a newly revealed Anniversary Collection trilogy, with each game celebrating a different facet of the company’s history. The announcement was somewhat surprising, given Konami’s relative silence in the games industry lately, but it’s certainly a welcome surprise to fans, who are set to be spoiled for choice later this year.

“Wait, where does the coin go?”

The first in the trilogy to be released will be the Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection, which will aptly focus on Konami’s history in arcades. The titles to be included will be:

• Haunted Castle
• Life Force (aka Salamander)
• Nemesis (aka Gradius)
• Scramble
• Thunder Cross
• TwinBee
• Typhoon (aka A-Jax)
• Vulcan Venture (aka Gradius II)

Included alongside these classics will be an e-book that features developer interviews, never-before-seen concept art, and more. The games will also feature some “modern enhancements,” though they haven’t been revealed so far. The collection will be releasing digitally on the 18th of April this year for $19.99 in the US; local release details have yet to be specified.

The morning sun rises once more in the second Anniversary Collection

Next up is the Castlevania Anniversary Collection. Similar to the previous title, this will feature an e-book pertaining to the series, and eight games will be featured. Only half of them have been revealed so far, and are as follows:

• Castlevania (NES)
• Castlevania III – Dracula’s Curse (NES)
• Castlevania II – Belmont’s Revenge (GameBoy)
• Super Castlevania IV (SNES)

This collection is due for an early summer release (winter for us Aussies), so we’ll likely hear about the other four titles before then. Fingers crossed for Rondo of Blood and Symphony!

Hey! Is that Arnold Schwarzenegger?

And lastly, we have the Contra Anniversary Collection. Again, there’s an e-book included and only half of the games have been revealed so far:

• Contra (Arcade, NES)
• Super Contra (Arcade)
• Super C (NES)
• Contra III – The Alien Wars (SNES)

This title is also set for “early summer.”

It’s really encouraging to see these classic franchises getting some recognition nowadays. Having Simon Belmont in Smash Ultimate was a real treat, and the Castlevania Netflix series has been very well-received, so perhaps Konami realised that there’s still a lot of love out there for their games, even with their current output being… different.

For more information on these collections, check out their official page here. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to watch the anime… again.