

El juego marca el salto de la serie a los gráficos en tres dimensiones y aplica cambios controvertidos a la jugabilidad. Fue la primera de las dos entregas de Contra desarrolladas externamente por Appaloosa, seguida por C – The Contra Adventure en 1998. Contra: Legacy of War es un videojuego de acción en 3D producido por Konami y desarrollado por Appaloosa Interactive publicado en 1996 para PlayStation y en 1997 para Sega Saturn.The game was scheduled to be released in Japan as well, but was cancelled.

Legacy of War bears the distinction for being the first console game in the series to retain both the Contra title and human characters during its release in Europe and Australia (where the console series has been known as Probotector from the first NES game until Contra: Hard Corps).

Legacy of War marks the series' shift to three-dimensional graphics and gameplay, the game was also packaged with a pair of 3D anaglyph glasses. It is a follow-up to Contra: Hard Corps, and was the first of two games in the Contra series that were externally developed by Appaloosa the second game, C: The Contra Adventure, was released in 1998.
