Mega Man X, released in 1993 by Capcom, is the first game in the Mega Man X series. The first subseries of the popular Mega Man series, it was made primarily as a stepping stone between the NES and SNES incarnations of the original series. In Japan, it is titled Rock Man X. It was released on the SNES first, then ported to the PC in 1995. The game was remade in 2006 as Mega Man Maverick Hunter X (Irregular Hunter X in Japan), for the PlayStation Portable.

The Mega Man series has always been an action game that focuses on "run-and-gun" gameplay. The player takes control of Mega Man X ("X" for short), a Maverick Hunter who seeks to stop Sigma's rebellion against humans. After an introductory stage, the player is presented with a stage selection screen that depicts eight Maverick boss characters.

After the player selects a Maverick to battle, X is teleported into the Maverick's base of operations. The player must dodge obstacles, destroy enemies and other hazards, and keep their life bar as high as possible. Defeating a stage and its boss Maverick rewards X with the boss's weapon, which can be used in a rock-paper-scissors fashion to defeat other boss characters. This mechanic is carried over from the Mega Man Classic series; Capcom maintained the tradition throughout the new series, with a few twists. In the X series, completing a stage may affect the environment of other stages, possibly making them easier or more hazardous.