We are a week away from Amusement Expo 2025 in Las Vegas, and with that, we are getting more hype building as we learn about new arcade products that will soon be found in arcades. For this one, as you already read, we’re covering new details on Top Gun Maverick by Play Mechanix & Raw Thrills, which we talked about previously due to it appearing early via Dave & Busters but has now been fully unveiled. Let’s kick the tires and light the fires to check it out!
Top Gun Maverick – Hardware
As seen from the recent location test, Top Gun Maverick uses a design similar to Raw Thrills’ own Fast & Furious Arcade, with two 65″ 4K screens. However, they’ve changed out the seat and controls – it’s still a compressed air-powered motion base, but comes with a new shell to represent a fighter jet. The controls are of the joystick/throttle variety, although it appears that there have been some slight modifications to these and the seat from the location test:
Operators can link up to four units together, where it seems to employ an arcade racing mechanic, which we’ll get to in the next section.
Top Gun Maverick – The Game
To quote from the new webpage that showcases the game and it’s details:
As the newest recruit of the prestigious Top Gun program, players must race elite pilots, such as Rooster, Hangman and Phoenix, through the dangerous skies of six heart-pounding levels to be the first to destroy the menacing mission objectives. While navigating through perilous volcanoes, hurricanes and avalanches, players will shoot down waves of formidable enemy aircraft, vehicles and boats to earn valuable Destruction Boosts and increase their score.
To become “the best of the best”, strategic power-ups like Afterburner, Heat-Seeking Missiles and Multi-Missiles will help players reach hypersonic speed and eliminate threatening bogies. Featuring iconic real-world fighter jets and nostalgia-inducing licensed music, Top Gun: Maverick allows players to soar across target-rich environments and dominate the competition with the legendary F-14 Tomcat, F-15E Strike Eagle and F/A-18 Super Hornet. Talk to me, Goose!
It’s safe to assume that there are no voice overs from any of the Top Gun actors here, as that would affect the price (causing it to go sky high, if you catch my drift). Between that description and the trailer though, it’s interesting that this appears to be adapting the gameplay of F&F Arcade into a fighter jet set up – it even has a “First Place” line, which certainly feels more racer than dogfighter, which we already inferred a little from the early location test photos. That said, there appears to be plenty of the latter action to enjoy:
This game is debuting at Amusement Expo 2025 next week, although if I understand their advertising correctly, it can already be found at select Dave & Busters locations. Shipping for the rest of us will be either next month or into May, but you can always get an order in now to your distributor if you want. I also imagine that some distributors will be offering some great financing deals on it at the show next week.
It is cool to see a dogfighter make its way back to arcades, as well as riding atop a strong license like this. Although I’m still holding out judgment on the gameplay for actually trying it – will it really be like “Fast & Furious with fighter jets”, After Burner Climax, or something else? I’ll find out next week!
