Joe & Mac Retro Collection: what is known, what is not

Joe & Mac Retro Collection packages the three Joe & Mac games Data East made for the Super Nintendo, and its publisher, the French company Red Art Games, says it arrives digitally on 29 October 2026, with boxed editions following in 2027. This page covers what the publisher and the storefronts say as of 13 September 2026, the day we read them: the stated date on every page that states one, exactly which games are in the package, who is building it, what the editions cost, the ratings the stores already display, and the questions no official page answers yet. The project began as a Kickstarter campaign in June 2025 with a different window, and that history is worth keeping in mind when reading the current date.

The date, quoted

Red Art Games' press release, datelined "Paris, France - August 27, 2026" and published on Games Press, carries the date in its headline: "Joe & Mac Retro Collection Brings its Retrogaming Goodness to Consoles and PC on October 29 Digitally". The body repeats it, saying the collection arrives "when it comes out digitally on October 29", and adds a platform: "in addition to the previously-announced Nintendo Switch™, PlayStation®5, Xbox Series X|S and Steam versions, Joe & Mac Retro Collection will also come out on Nintendo Switch™ 2." On boxed copies the release says: "Joe & Mac Retro Collection will get Standard, Deluxe and Rock physical editions on Nintendo Switch and PS5 in early 2027." The release gives no year beside October 29; the storefronts do.

Where	Version	What it says
Red Art Games press release, 27 August 2026	All digital versions	"on October 29 Digitally"
Steam store, US data	Windows PC	"Oct 29, 2026", marked coming soon
Steam store, UK and German data	Windows PC	"29 Oct, 2026"
PlayStation Store concept page	US and UK	2026-10-29 in the page data
Xbox store catalog	US	original release date 2026-10-29
Nintendo eShop	US and Europe	no listing found
Red Art Games shop, six physical product pages	PS5 and Switch boxed editions	"Expected Release Date: 2027"

We searched Nintendo of America's store index and Nintendo of Europe's game search for the title on 13 September and found nothing for either Switch version, so the Switch and Switch 2 date currently rests on the press release alone. The PlayStation page is an announcement entry: its data lists no purchasable products, so there is nothing to pre-order there yet. Dates move, and a date six weeks out that has not reached one of the four storefronts is a plan until the listing appears.

What is in it, per the publisher

The release's own summary is the list to hold the collection to. It calls the package "a compilation of Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja, Congo's Caper, and Joe & Mac 2: Lost in the tropics, the three Joe & Mac titles developed by Data East and released on Super Nintendo between 1991 and 1995. All three games are part of the Tatakae Genshijin franchise in Japan." Its feature list adds that the collection "Includes both the Western and uncensored Japanese versions of each title", so the package is three games in two regional versions each.

Game, as the release names it	Japanese title, as printed in the release	What the release says about it	Original Super Nintendo dates, per Nintendo Life
Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja	ジョーとマック戦え原始人	A run and gun platformer across 12 levels; "the game was censored when it came out in the West"	US January 1992; Europe 1992
Congo's Caper	戦え原始人2 ルーキーの冒険	A side-scrolling action platformer about Congo, a half-human, half-monkey boy rescuing his girlfriend from a demon, across 35 levels	Japan 18 December 1992; US May 1993; Europe 1993
Joe & Mac 2: Lost in the Tropics	ジョーアンドマック戦え原始人3主役はやっぱり	Adds light role-playing; players can court and marry a Stone Age girlfriend and have a child	Japan 18 February 1994; US April 1994; Europe November 1995

Three details in that table deserve a note. The release spells the third game's name two ways, "Joe & Mac 2: Lost in the tropics" in its summary and "Joe & Mac: Lost in the Tropics" in its description, and Nintendo Life records that Europe sold it as Joe & Mac 3: Lost in the Tropics. The Japanese title for the third game appears in the release without its ending; the Japanese release as Famitsu reproduced it in June 2025 gives the full name as 戦え原始人3 主役はやっぱりJOE&MAC. And Nintendo Life's page for the first game lists no Japanese date, so the "1991" at the start of the publisher's range is not something we could check against it. The Steam copy calls Caveman Ninja "the original arcade hit that started it all", but every official page describes the contents as the Super Nintendo games, and none lists the arcade version as included.

Who is building it

Every page names Red Art Games as publisher: the release, Steam, the PlayStation page ("RED ART GAMES") and the Xbox catalog. The developer credit is the same studio seen from different angles. Steam's developer field reads "Red Art Studios", and the release says the collection was "Developed by Red Art Studios, Red Art Games' internal development studio". Steam's legal line and the Xbox catalog instead say developed by Red Art Games, and the shop pages say "Published & Developed by Red Art Games." Red Art's page for the studio says Red Art Games opened it "at the end of 2021", that its office is in Metz, France, and that its work covers porting, debugging, QA and LQA.

The rights sit elsewhere. The release, the Steam page and the shop pages all carry the line "© G-MODE Corporation, DATA EAST, the DATA EAST logo(s) and JOE & MAC are registered trademarks of G-MODE Corporation." The release does not describe G-MODE's role beyond that line; Time Extension's 28 August article describes the collection as a partnership between Red Art Games and G-Mode. Funding came partly from backers: the Kickstarter page records a campaign that launched on 10 June 2025, closed on 10 July 2025, and ended with 612 backers pledging €36,952.

What the publisher says it adds

The release lists the additions: a new Boss Rush mode, save states, a rewind function, an optional CRT filter, two-player co-op, "Customizable aspect ratios", a way to "Check out the original game boxes, manuals and cartridges via the Virtual Unboxing Experience", and a music player for all three soundtracks. It frames the package as letting players "rediscover the original games as they were presented back in the 90s". The Steam page lists rewind, save states, the CRT filter, Custom Frames and Boss Rush, which it describes as facing the bosses of all three games one after another against the clock. It does not mention the unboxing feature or the music player.

The co-op claim is narrower than the store copy suggests. The release's feature line reads "Joe & Mac 1 and 2 can be played by two players in coop mode", and Nintendo Life lists Congo's Caper as a single-player game. Steam's text describes local two-player co-op for the collection without naming that exception. Platform details differ by store. Steam lists Windows only, Steam Achievements, Steam Cloud, Remote Play Together and seven interface languages (English, Japanese, French, Italian, German, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese), with a minimum of Windows 10, 4 GB of RAM and 400 MB of storage. The PlayStation page gives two players, Remote Play support and offline play. The Xbox catalog lists local co-op for two, 4K Ultra HD and optimisation for Xbox Series X|S. Red Art's own shop pages disagree with Steam on languages: four list "English, Japanese" and the two Switch special editions list only English.

Editions and prices

Only the boxed editions have prices, and only on Red Art Games' shop, in euros, as displayed on 13 September.

Edition	PS5	Switch	Contents, per the shop and the release
Standard	€39.99	€39.99	The game with a reverse inlay and a booklet
Deluxe	€39.99	€39.99	Reverse cover, Deluxe sleeve, booklet, sticker sheet; sold only by Red Art; "500 PEGI-rated copies per platform" per the release
Rock (listed as Collector's Edition)	€69.99	€69.99	Retro-inspired box, booklet or manual, double-sided poster, three badges, acrylic stand, sticker sheet, plus a second sticker sheet from Red Art's shop only

The release says "While the Standard and Rock Editions will be available from multiple European retailers at launch, all three physical Joe & Mac Retro Collection editions can be pre-ordered from Red Art Games’ official online shop now." Each shop page shows a production bar at 50% and an expected release of 2027. The shop showed the Deluxe Edition at the same €39.99 as the Standard Edition on the day we read it; we report that as displayed. There is no physical edition for Xbox, PC or Switch 2 on any page.

No storefront shows a digital price. Steam returns no price for the app, the PlayStation page has no product attached, the Xbox catalog carries a list price of zero with no purchase action, which reads as not yet priced rather than free, and there is no Nintendo listing to check.

Ratings the stores display

Board	Where it is shown	Rating	Descriptor as shown
ESRB	PlayStation Store US; Xbox US	Teen	Violence
PEGI	PlayStation Store UK; Xbox catalog	PEGI 7	Mild violence, per the Xbox catalog
USK	Xbox catalog; Steam data	12	Fantasy violence on Xbox; Gewalt on Steam

The Xbox catalog also lists Brazil's rating at 10 and Australia's at PG, and Steam's data carries Brazil at 10 and Indonesia's IGRS at 13. None of these is on the boards' own public records yet: the ESRB's search returned no certificate for the collection on 13 September, and PEGI's database search had no entry for it. Earlier Joe & Mac releases do have ESRB certificates. New Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja, the 2022 remake from Microids, is E10+ for Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood and Mild Suggestive Themes; Retro Classix: Joe & Mac - Caveman Ninja on PC is E10+; Retro Classix: Joe & Mac Returns is Teen. No page explains why the collection shows Teen, and we have not guessed at a reason.

The window has moved before

This is not the first date the collection has had. Famitsu's 17 June 2025 report on the Kickstarter launch said the collection was due "2025年の後半", the second half of 2025, on Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Steam, and the Japanese release it reproduced described a digital launch later that year. The campaign's reward data still carries estimated delivery months of December 2025 for several add-ons, among them a digital soundtrack and a name in the credits, and February 2026 for a base reward. The current digital date is 29 October 2026 and the boxed editions say 2027. That is the plainest reason to read the October date as the publisher's current plan rather than a certainty.

What is not known

Digital prices, on every storefront.
A Nintendo eShop listing for either Switch version, and whether Switch 2 gets its own version or plays the Switch release.
How the games run: the pages describe the originals "as they were presented back in the 90s" plus rewind and save states, but say nothing about the technology underneath.
What the uncensored Japanese versions change; the release says only that the first game was censored in the West.
Whether any arcade version is included; no page lists one.
A physical date more specific than "early 2027" or "2027", and whether boxed copies will be sold at retail outside Europe; the release names only European retailers.
Language support per platform, given the differences between Steam and the shop pages.
Board certificates behind the ratings the stores display.
The unlock time on 29 October; PlayStation and Xbox data carry a timestamp, but no official page states a launch time.

Before you pre-order

If you subscribe to Nintendo Switch Online, check what you already have. Nintendo Life's pages for all three games list them on the service, and Nintendo Japan has a Nintendo Classics page for JOE&MAC 戦え原始人 on Switch 2 and Switch. We have not confirmed which regional versions the service carries. For a subscriber, the collection's case rests on the Japanese versions, Boss Rush, the added features and the other platforms.
A boxed pre-order is money paid now for a 2027 delivery, from a shop whose production bar stood at 50% on the day we checked.
There is nothing to pre-order digitally yet, and none of the digital pages shows a price.
If you want co-op, the publisher's own line covers the two Joe & Mac games, not Congo's Caper.
The stores show Teen and PEGI 7 with violence as the descriptor, and the release is explicit that uncensored versions are included.
The date has already moved once, from the second half of 2025 to October 2026.

The row in the dataset

The dataset lists Joe & Mac Retro Collection with the developer Red Art Studios, as credited by the press release and Steam's developer field; the publisher Red Art Games; a first release of 29 October 2026, the publisher's digital date; the platforms Windows PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2; the genre "Platformer compilation", from the Xbox store's Platformer and Classics categories and the release's description of a compilation; the era upcoming; and Steam's store page as the source URL. The physical 2027 window is not in the row, because the row records first release. It is the first collection in the set and the third row with a future date, after Marvel's Wolverine and Metroid Ravenous. When the date passes, or a storefront posts a price or a different date, the row will be checked against these pages and corrected.