In the game, players control one of three mercenaries named Johnny Justice, Paul Patriot and Sammy Stately, who must discover the cause of a bizarre outbreak and shoot their way out of a city that has been invaded by the undead called Beasts.

In Japan, Game Machine listed Beast Busters on their January 15, 1990 issue as being the most-successful upright arcade unit of the month.

ACE rated it 4 out of 5 and reacted positively to the game's horror theme and story, calling it Operation Wolf meets Splatterhouse.

[7] According to Paul Theroux, Michael Jackson owned a Beast Busters arcade machine and frequently took it with him on tour via cargo plane.

A handheld spin-off called Dark Arms: Beast Buster was released in 1999 for the Neo Geo Pocket Color in the form of an Action RPG.