Neo City

For the Contra Force location, see Neo City (Contra Force).

Neo City is a prominent location on Earth. It is a primary location targeted by alien forces throughout the Contra series.

Description

Neo City is perhaps the largest known city on Earth. With an undisclosed estimated population, many humans take up residence in the city. Peace in this city does not often last long, as it constantly comes under attack by evil villainous forces. Its mass populace is a prime target for alien invasions.

History

Contra III: The Alien Wars

First canonical appearance of the city. For an untold number of years, humans have been living in peace and harmony throughout the streets. On that day in the year 2636 A.D., Gava descended from the sky and obliterated the city and wiped out its inhabitants with a single blast (as seen in the intro), thus beginning the Alien Wars. The Earth Federation Government sends its two top Contras, Bill Rizer and Lance Bean, to rid the city, and the entire world, of this powerful alien menace.

The ruins of Neo City is the first stage the heroes traverse through. The pair of heroes blast their way through many blockades and an infinitely spawning army of Red Falcon forces as they work to liberate the city. Halfway through a large run-down skyscraper, the heroes encounter a Blitzkrieg plane bombarding what's left of the city and burning the ground to ash. The heroes survive through the bombardment and its aftermath, and make their way toward Neo City's largest threat, Slave Beast Taka. After eliminating this giant menace, the Contras take their battle toward the Highway, where they eliminate more Red Falcon forces along the barely standing roadways. The two manage to take out their primary targets: a number of sheltered captains. In doing so, the enemy presence lowers, but the pair make their way onto a larger street as a large enemy robot is summoned. It ultimately falls to the two heroes, and the latter advance further toward the Neo Kobe Factory region to crush Red Falcon's armory and machinery presence that occupy the area. Once Bill and Lance wipe out the enemy presence inside the factory, the two ride Jet Motorcycles on a highway leading far out into the desert, located some distance away from the charred remains of Neo City. After long enduring battles, the two escape the desert war zone and are air-lifted to safety, returning home to Neo City for a congratulatory job well done by the remaining citizens. The ending scene reveals that the city has been partially rebuilt, and with the war over, Neo City regains its peace.

Contra: Hard Corps

A city is seen throughout the beginning of Hard Corps, but it is unclear if this is the same Neo City, as it is never directly stated otherwise. The North American instruction booklet possibly alludes to this by calling it "the chaotic city", also mentioning that crime has been on the rise within.

The city seen in this game is under attack by an armed terrorist force. The city's defense systems have been hacked and breached, allowing unmanned robots to run loose and rampant throughout the city streets. The Hard Corps are called in to bring peace back to this city. They rush into the city using their armored car and make a "forceful evacuation" onto the city streets, where they battle their way through the chaotic robot swarms and climb over rooftops with a burning city as backdrop. They eventually reach a robot revealed to be manned by someone. The bot jumps down and stomps on a parked car, ready to do battle. Before its defeat, it uses its upper torso to saw into rubble the skyscraper it initially stood on. The battle with the manned machine is fierce, but the Hard Corps prevail, demolishing the robot and revealing a terrorist mercenary in charge of the chaotic robot army, who reveals himself to be Deadeye Joe. Before he can be apprehended, he flees toward the city highways leading far out from the city. The Hard Corps immediately receive a distress call from the Research Center, and are forced to make a decision:

If the team decides to "Go after Deadeye Joe", they do battle with more of his machines on the city highways, through an alleyway, and ultimately on a road leading far out from the city.
If the team chooses to "Rescue the Research Center", they ride a Motoroid toward the outskirts of the city where the Research Center is located at. The Air Police provides a hitch ride to the team.

It is later revealed that the attack on the city was merely a diversion in order for Colonel Bahamut to successfully steal the stored Alien Cells.

The city is only seen once more during a bad ending decision; should player's decide to side with Colonel Bahamut's conquest request, an image of him and his "followers" (the player(s)) will be shown with a burning city in the background, referencing Bahamut's domination and exacted revenge over the city and its government.

Contra 4

Under the leadership of Black Viper, the Red Falcon army once again invades and terrorizes Neo City, slaughtering much of its populace and enslaving the remaining survivors. As Bill Rizer and his teammates, Lance Bean, Mad Dog and Scorpion, deal with the alien menace at the Galuga Archipelago, they learn of Black Viper's army attempting to wipe out the remains of the city with a large missile. The heroes fight their way through the archipelago's harbor region and eventually make their way to the station's missile dock. The heroes then decide to hitch a ride on the active warhead and ride its outside as it launches up toward its destination. The heroes survive an onslaught of attacks from the warhead's guardian and make a crash landing onto Neo City, where surprisingly the missile does not detonate and simply crashes nosecone-first into a ruined building (it is possible the missile was damaged by the ensuing battles that took place upon it). After a brief fight with the surviving missile guardian, the heroes set their sights at freeing the city from the alien menace. They take to the seas in order to reach a nearby factory, and once it gets demolished, the heroes close in on liberating the surviving citizens and taking the fight directly to the heart of the city. At the core of Neo City, the streets are littered with crashed cars and mutilated skyscrapers, with surviving citizens seen fleeing for their lives from the massive swarms of Black Viper's forces. The heroes battle through wave after wave of strong enemies until they take to the ruined highway, where they meet a grotesque alien creature responsible for transporting surviving citizens to Black Viper's harvest yard. The heroes blast this big alien bug to death and fight their way through the alien hive based on the outskirts of the city. The heroes work to exterminate Black Viper and succeed, but it is unclear if the remaining captured citizens were rescued from the destroyed harvest yard. Nevertheless, the spared and surviving populace is seen returning to the destroyed streets of Neo City at the ending, where rebuilding of the city commences once more. In the normal ending, the city's citizens are seen congratulating a returning Bill Rizer in the center of a street. On the Hard Mode ending, a victorious Bill Rizer is seen atop the mutilated remains of Black Viper's body, seen at the outskirts of Neo City.

In the same game, Neo City is also depicted within two unlockable comics, which are based on the events portrayed in both Contra III and Contra 4.

Contra: Shattered Soldier

By the year 2647 A.D., the city has become a desolate pile of tall ruins landscape thanks in part to the numerous alien invasions and terrorist destruction. Its citizens live an unknown struggling fate, as much of the streets appear void of any human life. Some of the populace appears to have taken to the underground, as facilities are seen actively working underneath the city. It is rumored that the citizens are now living off the flesh of a certain genetically modified creature for sustenance.

The city is first depicted in the opening cutscene, where Bill and Lucia are fighting off the litter of enemy presence. In-game, the city appears as part of the game's third mission. Bill and Lucia are sent to eliminate a new enemy threat in order to preserve what's left of the city. The pair enter the city by riding on jet boards alongside hounds and blast through their way through the swarms of robotic threats. The two take an elevator leading toward an underground meat processing facility and battle larger creatures until they reach what appears to be a maintenance tunnel, where they encounter a long armored machine digging its way toward the destruction of the city from below. The two heroes survive through its many attacks and the hazards of the underground facilities and eliminate the threat to the remaining city populace.

Contra: Rogue Corps

Neo City is shown occasionally within the Rogue Corps motion comics. In the first motion comic, people occupy the city streets as they cheer on the destruction of the Red Falcon army's presence in the Galuga Archipelago, decimated by the hands of the city's two finest heroes Bill Rizer and Lance Bean. A flashback in the third comic shows the City during the Alien Wars, in which some of the landscape has been terraformed by the returning Red Falcon army. Two Garth Base are seen flying around as they soon spot Bill and Lance atop the City's rooftops.

In the game itself, the City serves as a major location for most of the story. Two years after the Alien Wars reached an end, scientists created a weapon known as the Vortex Cannon in an unspecified laboratory within the City's grounds. The canon was fired, and the rest of the alien army was eliminated, allowing humanity to rebuild once more in harmony.

...however this peace did not last long. As the President arrived on scene to survey the Lab and commence with a victorious press conference to the world, a mysterious demonic City arose from the grounds of Neo City. This demonic city was named the Damned City and serves as the central location throughout the entire game. The remaining Earth forces struggle to survive this new wave of alien terror. A small team of Jaegers band together and build a Camp near the Damned City in order to amass their remaining numbers. Their elite team of soldiers known as the Rogue Corps constantly explore the Damned City in order to score some loot, frag some Fiends and learn of some of the evil city's secrets along the way.

Many missions take place throughout portions of the Damned City. Within the same game, a commonly visited area known as the Old City is also explored. The Old City is likely the remains of the old Neo City that was decimated during the Alien Wars and now overrun by the Damned City. It is unknown if a new Neo City was built in a different location.

It is later revealed that the Damned City is actually an alien-controlled city from an alternate timeline, one where the Aliens were victorious in conquering Earth, and its presence in the mainline Earth is due to the two timelines attempting to merge and correct the flow of time. Because of this, it is strongly suggested that the Damned City is in actuality an alternate reality Neo City, one where Aliens conquered and controlled the landscape that remained. This could be hinted by some structures seen during missions, such as several "Statue of Liberty"-like structures in various missions. Its twisted and demonic zombie-like face demonstrates how powerful the Red Falcon army is at influencing both the man-made and natural environments of the Earth. Some American flags can also be seen in certain missions alongside the hive-like demonic landscape.

Contra: Operation Galuga

An unnamed city is briefly shown during the game's comic book-style ending. As Doyle and Dr. Drake are having a discussion, they grow concerned over the fact that the aftermath of the Lemris's depleted power will lead to the disappearance of the protective gravitational field around Earth. The camera then pans out to the building the two are in, followed by surrounding buildings, and finally wormholes with alien invaders appearing, with the caption "The Alien Wars" underneath. Since the original mainline Alien Wars took place primarily centered around Neo City, it is heavily implied that the city seen being invaded in Operation Galuga is Neo City.

Gallery

Trivia

An identical looking city also appears in the Probotector series; however, the city does not appear to have any specific name.
Neo City may possibly be based off of New York City, a popular city seen in various action and sci-fi movies, further hinting this could be the location of "the city" in Shattered Soldier, as well as the placement of American flags around various buildings in Rogue Corps.
- Coincidentally, the Contra Force instruction booklet states that Neo City is housed within the U.S. This info may have been carried over to the mainline Neo City before Contra Force was officially declared "not part of the official series timeline".