Gradius Origins Collection Brings Legendary Shmup Series to PS5, Includes Brand New Game

We ship it

by Stephen Tailby Thu, 3pm

Publisher Konami has announced Gradius Origins, a retro collection featuring a bunch of titles in its classic shoot-'em-up series.

Coming to PS5 on 7th August, 2025, Gradius Origins features the following titles:

Gradius
Gradius II: Gofer no Yabou
Gradius III: Densetsu kara Shinwa e
Life Force
Salamander
Salamander 2
Salamander 3

Salamander 3 is a brand new title developed by M2, while the rest are retro games from throughout the years.

Not only are there seven games in the collection, but most of them have multiple regional variations included.

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As you'd expect from a collection like this, various quality-of-life features smooth out the old school edges. Save states, rewind, Invincible mode, and Training mode will help ease in new players, and a gallery mode will allow you to listen to music and check out imagery from all the games.

It's a win for fans of old school shooters — will you be checking out Gradius Origins? Shoot down to the comments section below.

Stephen has been part of the Push Square team for over six years, bringing boundless enthusiasm and a deep knowledge of video games to his role as Assistant Editor. Having grown up playing every PlayStation console to date, he's developed an eclectic taste, with particular passion for indie games, arcade racers, and puzzlers. He's also our go-to guy for Sonic-related matters, much to his delight/chagrin.

1
Bionic-Spencer
Thu, 3:20pm

I haven’t played a Gradius since 5 was released on PlayStation 2! That title was actually made by Treasure and was awesome! 100% can wait for this collection!

2
dskatter
Thu, 3:21pm

I really want the orginal NES version of Life Force to be included in this collection, not just the arcade iteration. I played the absolute heck out of that when I was a kid.

3
Truegamer79
Thu, 3:30pm

Wasn't there already a Gradius collection not all that long ago? Salamander 3 looks cool at least. That's new.

4
Hundred_Hand_Slap
Thu, 3:35pm

My uncle got me Gradius on NES for Christmas in like 87. Great surprise gift. Always stoked for a classic Konami collection.

5
MrPeanutbutterz
Thu, 3:49pm

Was excited for half a second at the thought of Gradius V being available. Sigh.

6
carlos82
Thu, 3:50pm

I'm excited for this but I'll have to buy it for Switch because of Sony's nonsense of not allowing PS4 controllers to work on PS5.

For this kind of game, I like to use my arcade stick but because of this issue, it simply doesn't work on PS5 games, despite the identical button layout

7
Perturbator
Thu, 3:56pm

@Bionic-Spencer Loved that game, but it was so damn hard! Don't think we got further than halfway in co-op before having to give up. Of course me and my fellow student friends were likely stoned and drunk at the time so that may have affected performance.

Anyway this is still my fav game cover of all time. My copy was all sparkly silver and not gray as it appears in photos though. It was so beautiful!
Untitled

8
Titntin
Thu, 4:18pm

Awesome news, I'm a huge Schumup fan.

Had an old friend come for the weekend a couple of weeks back and we broke out the Namco fight for a schumup session and he completed the original Gradius with no continues. He knows it very well of course, but I was still blown away....

I will be happy to add this one to the collection.

9
Northern_munkey
Thu, 4:41pm

Where is vulcan venture? I loved that coin op.

10
Northern_munkey
Thu, 4:43pm

@carlos82 the ps4 dual shock works perfectly fine on the ps5 if you are playing ps4 games.

11
Migoshuro
Thu, 4:54pm

@Northern_munkey Is Vulcan Venture not just the American name for Gradius 2? In that case, it's on there.

12
Dimey
Thu, 5:03pm

what a shame. why can't they include ALL the games!

I have a few of these on Konami arcade collection, and a couple on hu-cards for my pc-engine, but would have been nice to have ALL the games in the series in a single collection.

13
Northern_munkey
Thu, 5:05pm

@Migoshuro I've got no idea to be honest..I'll take your word for it.

14
carlos82
Thu, 5:19pm

@Northern_munkey I'm talking about PS5 games, so many peripherals like arcade sticks or wheels don't work on PS5 games unless white listed by the developers, when there is no reason whatsoever why Sony shouldn't just let them work

15
Northern_munkey
Thu, 5:35pm

@carlos82 I did wonder why my street fighter fight pad didn't work on my ps5.

16
Futureshark
Thu, 5:50pm

Gahhh, no Gradius V.....

A Treasure classic from the PS2 and they missed it, almost all the rest I think are already available from the Arcade Archives collection.

17
Amnesiac
Thu, 6:29pm

@Truegamer79 I think that was the Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection. It had the first two Gradius games, Life Force, and some other good stuff. Also, Haunted Castle, which is not good stuff.

18
smallbrownbike
Thu, 7:50pm

@carlos82 Given that’s it’s the ShotTriggers division of m2 doing the collection, I’d be gobsmacked if it doesn’t support ps4 sticks.

Since 2016s Battle Garegga, all they have done are shmup ports. Mainly arcade perfect ones.

19
AhmadSumadi
Thu, 7:53pm

Ah, Life Force! The memories that one brings back! Game released before Contra but people still call the Life Force code the "Contra code". Anyway, excited for this. I love these games!

20
Absymbel
Fri, 5:19am

@Perturbator I have the Famicom Salamander cart which is transparent blue and Gradius II which came in a nice silver foil box. Two of my all-time favorite games.