It took sixteen years, but one of strategy gaming's most quietly beloved cult experiments has finally arrived in the West in full. R-Type Tactics I • II Cosmos launched on June 18, 2026, bundling Irem and Granzella's turn-based spin-offs into a single ground-up remake — and, crucially, bringing the long-import-only R-Type Tactics II out of Japan for the very first time.
Published by NIS America and developed by Granzella — the studio founded by former Irem staff who kept the R-Type flame alive — the collection rebuilds both PSP originals from scratch in Unreal Engine 5. What were once cramped handheld grids are now sweeping 3D battlefields, with the series' iconic Bydo-blasting fighters and Force pods rendered in far more detail than the 2007 and 2009 source games ever managed.
The headline addition is the brand-new Cosmos campaign, a set of original missions layered on top of the two remastered games. Between the base content and the new material, NIS America is pitching this as a genuinely enormous package: players who click with its rhythms can sink well over a hundred hours into it, which makes it one of the better-value strategy releases of the year if the style lands for you.
Mechanically, this is classic R-Type filtered through a tactics lens: you deploy fighters and support craft across grid maps, manage fuel and positioning, and lean on the trademark Force orb as both shield and weapon. Three playable factions, branching mission structures in the second campaign, optional online play and a fresh English voice track round out a release that wears its old-school heart proudly on its sleeve.
Early reviews have landed in cautiously positive territory. RPGFan scored the collection a 79, calling it “visually gorgeous” while warning of a “punishing, old-school grind and lack of onboarding,” and other outlets echoed the praise for its breadth and presentation alongside frustration at the missing built-in tutorial, the absence of an undo-move option that most modern tactics games take for granted, and an interface that has only been lightly modernized. This is, in other words, a labour of love aimed squarely at people who already know they love it.
R-Type Tactics I • II Cosmos is available now on Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S and Steam. NIS America has also confirmed two free DLC packs — including a Unit Color Variation Fighter Pack — arriving across all platforms on June 29.
