Players must infiltrate enemy POW camps in Vietnam to find prisoners of wars and lead them to freedom.

By killing the red enemy soldiers, the player can acquire additional weapons.

At the end of each level, an assorted number of troops appears on fixed machine gun positions (usually four) that must be eliminated.

Missing in Action was made available on Microsoft's Game Room service for its Xbox 360 console and for Windows-based PCs in December 2010.

In Japan, Game Machine listed Missing in Action on their March 15, 1989 issue as being the twentieth most-successful table arcade unit of the month.