4-player games on your arcade machine: the classics that work and how to set them up

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Simpsons, X-Men and Captain Commando were designed for four people standing in front of the same screen. That is why we make the 4-player cabinet and pedestal, and in this guide we go through what you can play on them: which arcade games really support four players at once, how many buttons each one needs, what you have to adjust so that all four players appear, and which current PC games have four-player local co-op.

The arcade game data comes from the MAME source code, the Arcade Italia database (with data from MAME 0.289) and the FBNeo game list, checked on 3 November 2026. To play the arcade games you need your own copies of them: we do not link to ROMs or downloads here.

Four buttons are enough for players 3 and 4

On the 4-player arcade cabinet and the 4-player arcade pedestal, players 1 and 2 have six buttons and players 3 and 4 have four. It may not sound like much, but none of the four-player arcade games in this guide needs more than four buttons per player. Most use two (attack and jump) or three. The ones that need the most are Capcom’s two Dungeons & Dragons games, with exactly four.

The six buttons for players 1 and 2 are there for everything else: two-player fighting games such as Street Fighter II, which use six.

The four-player arcade games that work

Every game on this list supports four players at once and is available in both MAME and FBNeo. In brackets, the year and the buttons each player uses. Where MAME warns of an emulation issue, we say so.

Konami, the king of four-player games

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989, 2 buttons).
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (1991, 2 buttons).
• The Simpsons (1991, 2 buttons).
• Vendetta (1991, 2 buttons).
• Sunset Riders (1991, 2 buttons). MAME marks the graphics as imperfect.
• X-Men (1992, 3 buttons). There is also a six-player version, but in MAME it has imperfect graphics and needs two more player positions than the cabinet has: the one that fits is the four-player version.
• Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa (1992, 2 buttons) and Bucky O’Hare (1992, 3 buttons). Imperfect graphics in both.
• Mystic Warriors and Metamorphic Force (1993, 2 buttons). Imperfect graphics, and they come set up for two players: you need to change the “Number of Players” setting to 4.

Watch out for versions: the Turtles, Turtles in Time, The Simpsons, X-Men, Sunset Riders and Vendetta all have two-player versions. In MAME they appear as separate games, with “2 Players” in the name. For the four-player cabinet, the one you want is the four-player version.

Capcom

• Captain Commando (1991, 2 buttons). It comes in two-player mode: you need to change the “Play Mode” setting to four.
• Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom (1993) and Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara (1996), with 4 buttons: attack, jump, magic and select. These are the ones that make full use of the panel for players 3 and 4.
• Saturday Night Slam Masters (1993, 3 buttons). Four-player wrestling, rather than a beat ’em up.

Sega, Atari, Midway and others

• Gauntlet (1985) and Gauntlet II (1986), by Atari Games, with 2 buttons.
• Quartet (1986, Sega, 2 buttons).
• Growl (1990, Taito, 3 buttons).
• Spider-Man: The Videogame (1991, Sega, 2 buttons) and Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder (1992, Sega, 3 buttons). Arcade Italia lists their emulation as imperfect.
• Captain America and The Avengers (1991, Data East, 2 buttons). It supports two or four players depending on its configuration, and the emulation is also imperfect.
• Hook (1992, Irem, 2 buttons).
• NBA Jam (1993, Midway, 3 buttons). Two-on-two matches.

The ones that look like four-player games but are not

Alien vs. Predator, Armored Warriors, Violent Storm and Rampage: World Tour support three players at once, not four. Asterix is a two-player game, and Hyper Sports lets four people play, but taking turns.

How to connect the four controllers

The cabinet is ready for a Raspberry Pi or a PC, and to the system each player is a separate USB controller. The simplest option is one Zero Delay interface per player: four in total. Our two-player joystick and button kits come with two interfaces, so with two kits you have all four joysticks and all four interfaces. The Zero Delay interface is also sold separately.

If you prefer a board that the computer sees as a keyboard, such as the I-PAC, Batocera has tools to turn it into separate controllers, but they have to be set up from the system console.

In Batocera

• In the main menu, the controllers and Bluetooth section (CONTROLLER AND BLUETOOTH SETTINGS) shows the connected controllers and which player each one goes to. That is where you set who is player 1, 2, 3 and 4.
• The game’s own settings, such as “Number of Players” or “Play Mode”, are changed in-game. With FBNeo, press HOTKEY and the bottom button, then go into Options and then Dip switch settings. With standalone MAME, the menu opens with HOTKEY and the bottom button, or with L3 and R3.
• On the Raspberry Pi, the MAME that Batocera uses by default is MAME2003-Plus, an old version of MAME. For fighting and multiplayer games from this era, Batocera suggests FBNeo.

In RetroBat (Windows)

• In CONTROLLER SETTINGS you assign a controller to each player.
• If you also connect console controllers, the “Gamepads before arcade sticks” option in GAME SETTINGS decides who comes first: with it switched on, the console controllers are players 1, 2… and the arcade joysticks come after them.

If you are still deciding what to put inside the cabinet, in Which system should I choose for my arcade machine? we compare the options.

Current PC games with four-player local co-op

With a PC inside the cabinet you can also play current games. These support four players on the same screen. Prices are those on Steam in Spain on 3 November 2026 and may change.

• Streets of Rage 4 (2020): up to 4 local players. Windows, Mac and Linux, €24.99.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge (2022): up to 6 players at once. Windows and Linux, €24.99.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection (2022): Konami’s official collection, with the Turtles and Turtles in Time arcade games for 4 players. Windows, €39.99.
• Castle Crashers: up to 4 local players. Windows and Mac, €11.99.
• MARVEL Cosmic Invasion (2025): up to 4 local players. Windows and Linux, €29.99.
• Scott Pilgrim EX (2026): up to 4 local players. Windows and Linux, €28.99.

To find out which computer you need, What PC do I need for emulation? covers the mini PCs that fit in a cabinet. And if you like the Streets of Rage series, the first game already has a native PC port, although that one is two-player.

Frequently asked questions

How many buttons does each player need?

For the four-player arcade games in this guide, four at most. Players 3 and 4 on the cabinet have exactly four.

Can I play six-button fighting games?

Yes, with players 1 and 2, who have six buttons each.

What if the game only lets two people play?

Check two things: that you are not using a two-player version of the game and, in Captain Commando, Mystic Warriors or Metamorphic Force, the number of players setting.

Do I need a PC or will a Raspberry Pi do?

The arcade games on this list date from 1985 to 1996 and Batocera emulates them on the Raspberry Pi with FBNeo, although we have not tested them one by one. For current Steam games you need a PC.

Does the pedestal come with a screen?

No. The pedestal connects to a TV or a monitor. If you want a complete machine, the 4-player cabinet is the pedestal with a top section for a 32″ monitor.

Sources

Checked in November 2026:

• MAME on GitHub: drivers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mystic Warriors and Metamorphic Force, Capcom CPS1 and Capcom CPS2.
• Arcade Italia (Arcade Database): players, buttons and status of each game.
• FBNeo game list.
• Batocera wiki: menus, FBNeo, MAME and arcade.
• RetroBat wiki: main menu.
• Steam: Streets of Rage 4, Shredder’s Revenge, The Cowabunga Collection, Castle Crashers, MARVEL Cosmic Invasion and Scott Pilgrim EX.