"The Revised Recon" was designed by Erick Wujcik and published by Palladium Books in 1986 as a 152-page book. Wujcik's "Revised Recon" (1986) revamped the tactical miniatures game "Recon" (1982) by Joe F. Martin; Wujcik needed to figure out how to turn miniatures warfare into an RPG, and finally settled on focusing the game on ambushes. Because of its origins, "Revised Recon" was the only other Palladium game aside from "Valley of the Pharaohs" (1983) that did not use Palladium's house system. "Recon" received just one further book, "Advanced Recon" (1987), which involved a commando campaign set in 1960s Laos.