Contra: Hard Corps is a side-scrolling run and gun-style shoot-'em-up video game released by Konami for the Sega Genesis in North America and South Korea in 1994. It was also released for the Mega Drive as Contra: The Hard Corps (魂斗羅 ザ・ハードコア Kontora Za Hādo Koa^?) in Japan and as Probotector in Europe and Australia . It was the first game in the Contra series released for a Sega platform and serves as a departure from preceding games in the series in many ways. Set five years after the events of Contra III: The Alien Wars, a terrorist group led by the renegade Colonel Bahamut have stolen an alien cell recovered from the war and now intends to use it to produce weapons. Instead of the traditional Contra heroes of Bill Rizer and Lance Bean, a new task force known as the Hard Corps (with four members) are sent to deal with the situation. The game features a branching storyline with multiple possible endings.