It is based on various conflicts between four kinds of plastic army men, distinguished by their color: the Green, the Tan, the Blue, and the Grey.

But we didn't want to have to do two versions, and very early on in the design process we'd been planning things out with little plastic army men, so we suddenly realized that this was what everyone always likens a game like this to anyway!

A fan made Army Men III was under development by Neotl Empire, but was cancelled and resulted in an open source release of the unfinished game in April 2018.

During its later years, the Army Men series was criticized by X-Play[8] and Seanbaby of EGM,[9] for the frequency and declining quality of each new title.

3DO co-founder and designer Trip Hawkins even wrote a letter to GamePro magazine to defend Portal Runner's harsh reception, describing the editors as “angry young men” and threatening to reduce their advertising.