Blaze Entertainment has announced NEOGEO Arcade 4, the fourth Neo Geo cartridge in the Evercade purple arcade line. It arrives on June 26th 2026 at £19.99 / $29.99 / €24.99 — cart number 22 in the Evercade library — and brings eight more SNK arcade titles to physical media for the first time in decades.
The lineup is a strong one. Metal Slug 4 is the headline — the entry in the series that gets less attention than the original three but deserves more. Blazing Star is one of the finest horizontal shoot ’em ups the Neo Geo produced, a game that rewards skilled play with absurd visual spectacle and genuine depth. The King of Fighters 2002 is widely considered the peak of the KOF series by competitive players. Fatal Fury Special and King of the Monsters round out the fighting and arcade action end of the cart, alongside 3 Count Bout, Baseball Stars 2, and Robo Army.
The Full Lineup
- Metal Slug 4 — Run and gun classic, fourth entry in the series
- Blazing Star — Horizontal shoot ’em up with branching routes and stunning sprite work
- The King of Fighters 2002 — Dream Match, widely considered the definitive KOF entry
- Fatal Fury Special — Updated version of Fatal Fury 2 with a 15-character roster
- King of the Monsters — Giant monster wrestling/fighting hybrid
- 3 Count Bout — Tag-team wrestling with cooperative two-player mode
- Baseball Stars 2 — Arcade baseball with competitive and cooperative modes
- Robo Army — Side-scrolling beat ’em up featuring robots
The Value Case
At £19.99 for eight games, NEOGEO Arcade 4 works out at £2.50 per title. For context, an original AES cartridge of Blazing Star currently trades at around $594 on the secondhand market. Metal Slug 4 isn’t cheap either. The Evercade Neo Geo carts have consistently offered the most cost-effective legitimate access to this library outside of digital storefronts, and the physical cartridge format means you own them rather than licensing them.
The cart is compatible with all Evercade hardware — the EXP-R handheld, the VS-R home console, and the Alpha arcade cabinet — as well as the HyperMegaTech Super Pocket. Owners who’ve updated their firmware can also access the AES home console versions of each game alongside the MVS arcade originals, a feature Evercade added earlier this year.
What’s Still Missing
With 22 Evercade carts’ worth of Neo Geo now announced or released, the gaps in the library become increasingly interesting. Samurai Shodown II, Last Blade, and Pulstar are the notable absences from the fighting and shoot ’em up categories. Metal Slug 3 — the most expensive AES cart of the current Evercade library at around $1,800 original — hasn’t appeared yet. Blaze has confirmed Neo Geo releases will continue into 2027, so the catalogue has room to grow.
NEOGEO Arcade 4 is available to pre-order now from the Evercade store and launches June 26th 2026. For more on the Neo Geo in 2026, see our complete Neo Geo guide and our piece on the AES+ breaking its own pre-order forecast.