WayForward Contra and Konami interview - ‘we want to make a positive impression’

Contra: Operation Galuga – this is not WayForward’s first rodeo (Picture: Konami)

GameCentral talks to the makers of Shantae and Contra: Operation Galuga about the joys of 2D gaming and revamping the classics.

2D gaming specialist WayForward has been around for a staggering 34 years at this point and in the lead-up to the release of Contra: Operation Galuga we realised that not only had we never spoken to them, but we’ve never seen anyone else interview them either.

It turns out there is no special reason for their apparent shyness and so we asked to talk to them ahead of the game’s release and before we had a chance to play it. When the game launched to middling reviews we expected the interview plans would be cancelled but, to publisher Konami’s credit, they allowed it to carry on – albeit with a couple of questions redacted.

The interview was conducted only by email, which is never ideal, but there’s still some interesting stuff in there, concerning WayForward’s development philosophy and their implied plans for Contra and other retro Konami franchises.

WayForward was established in California in 1990, initially doing work for hire jobs on licensed games and other low budget titles. WayForward slowly began to earn a reputation for unexpected quality, especially in terms of 2D gameplay and animation, even when working with the least promising of licences. As a result, both publishers and fans began to seek them out no matter the franchise they were involved with.

Soon enough, they got the chance to work on their own IP, most notably Game Boy Color game Shantae 2002, which went almost entirely unnoticed at the time but has since spawned multiple sequels and a cult following.

Before this year, WayForward had already worked on Contra once before, with Nintendo DS title Contra 4 which, sadly, was never released in Europe. As they describe in the interview, Operation Galuga is a considerably more accessible game, in every sense, and while not wholly successful we get the feeling it won’t be the last collaboration with Konami…

The questions below were answered by both WayForward director Tomm Hulett and Konami director Akiyoshi Chosokabe.

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