The arcade version of Prisoners of War can be played by up to two players simultaneously, In La Havana, Cuba Player 1 controls a prisoner dressed in blue named Snake, while Player 2 controls one in red named Bart. The objective is to escape from the enemy's base by fighting their way through four stages filled with numerous soldiers trying to impede the player's escape. The stages consist of a POW camp, a warehouse, a jungle, and the enemy's base. Enemies includes foot soldiers, commandos, and green berets.

The controls consists of an eight-way joystick for moving the character and three action buttons for punching, kicking, and jumping. here are also three special attacks performed by pressing two buttons in combination: a jump kick (jump, and then kick), a back punch (jump and punch simultaneously), and a headbutt (punch and kick simultaneously).

The player can also pick up one of two weapons dropped by defeated enemies: a throwing knife and a machine gun. When wielding the machine gun, the player can fire it by pressing the kick button or conserve its ammo by pressing the punch button to gun whip enemies.