Mercs

The arcade version of the game had up to three players available for play. The players are members of a covert mercenary team known as the "Wolf Force". The team is composed of Joseph Gibson (Player 1 in blue), Howard Powell (Player 2 in red), and Thomas Clarke (Player 3 in yellow). Their objective is to rescue a former President from rebels in the fictional African country of Zutula, which is administered by an apartheid government. The game has six levels, plus the final level where the objective is to rescue the president from the Hercules Transport.

The controls consist of an eight-directional joystick and two buttons: a Normal Attack and the Megacrush Attack. The player character has a vitality gauge which will gradually deplete as they take damage from enemies; however, First-Aid Kits can be picked up that will restore part of the player's energy, as well as power-ups that increases their maximum vitality. The player can upgrade their default gun into an Assault Rifle, a Shotgun, a Grenade Launcher, or a Flamethrower. The Megacrush button will detonate a bomb that kills all on-screen enemies.

Upon its North American debut at Chicago's American Coin Machine Exposition (ACME) in March 1990, Mercs was declared "the hit of the show" by RePlay magazine and several major distributors. Upon release, the game was a hit in the United States, where weekly coin drop earnings averaged $193.25 per arcade unit during November and December 1990.

In Japan, Game Machine listed Mercs on their May 1, 1990 issue as being the second most-successful table arcade unit of the month, outperforming titles such as Aliens and Final Fight. In the United States, it had a strong launch, as the top-grossing new arcade release in the May 1990 issue of the RePlay charts. While successful, it was not an arcade blockbuster like the original Commando or its imitators such as Ikari Warriors (1986). The original Commando designer Tokuro Fujiwara was disappointed that he did not develop a Commando sequel sooner, as the arcade market already had numerous Commando style games by the time Mercs released.

Smoke, are included in the fourth volume of the Capcom Generations compilations released for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn in 1998. The same version of the game would later be included as part of Capcom Classics Collection Vol. 1, released for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in 2005, and Capcom Classics Collection: Reloaded for the PlayStation Portable in 2006. The Mega Drive/Genesis version was released for the Wii Virtual Console by Sega in North America on February 9, 2009, and by Capcom in Europe on February 20, 2009, at a cost of 800 Wii Points.

This re-release is listed under the title of Mercs: Wolf of the Battlefield, to tie in with the earlier Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3. The Mega Drive/Genesis version is on the Retrobit Generations Plug and Play, along with other games. The Mega Drive/Genesis version was re-released on the Nintendo Classics service on November 27, 2024.