Nintendo’s 1974 FMV Version of Wild Gunman Has Been Preserved & Rebuilt

While many light gun fans will likely be familiar with Nintendo’s classic Wild Gunman game that was released on the Famicom/NES in the mid-1980s (yes, the one that appeared in Back to the Future Part II,) many may not know that it was based on an arcade FMV electro-mechanical light gun game that they released in 1974. This version was originally called Gun Fight in Japan, and features live actors, playing out on a big projector screen which required you to quick-draw your gun and shoot before your opponent.

This original arcade version of the game was generally thought to be lost media until just last week, when an arcade restoration channel on YouTube called 74XX Arcade Repair released a video showcasing how he had found the original film reels that sat inside the arcade machine and re-created the entire game from the ground up to run on modern gaming hardware.

He also reconstructed his own version of the cabinet itself to replicate the original arcade experience and is showcasing the cabinet live in-person at the Ontario PinFest in Ontario, Canada on the weekend of May 30th, 2026. When asked if he’d be bringing the cabinet to any other gaming events in the future, he said he doesn’t have any current plans to do so, but is open to future opportunities.

You can view the whole story of his process of finding and scanning the film reels, a deep dive in researching the game architecture itself, as well as re-constructing the game and cabinet in the full video, featured below. He’s also stated that he plans to release the software itself at some point so we can play the game at home on our own light guns someday, even though it might be complicated due to Nintendo’s penchant for legal action when anyone tries to preserve something of theirs that’s become dead or lost to time.

Stay tuned for more updates on where we’ll be able to experience this previously-lost game for ourselves and mark this down as a big win for game preservation as a whole, as well as an important piece of light gun history brought back to life.