Like piracy, the mercenary ethos resonates with idealized adventure, mystery and danger. Examples of this are:

The novel Dogs of War by Frederick Forsyth and the movie (1981) with the same name, which go into some detail about an actual if fictionalized mercenary operation in Africa in the 1960s.

The novel The Wild Geese by Daniel Carney and the movie (1978) with the same name. The plot is that a global British financial syndicate seeks to rescue the deposed leader of a central African nation. It hires a band of mercenaries to do the job.

It is interesting to note that the both titles are derived from other sources. Cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war; is from Julius Caesar (III.i), a play by Shakespeare. After the signing of the Treaty of Limerick (1691) the soldiers of the Irish Army who left Ireland for France took part in what is known as the Flight of the Wild Geese. Subsequently many made a living from working as mercenaries for continental armies. The most famous of whom was Patrick Sarsfield, who having falling mortally wounded on a foreign field said "If this was only for Ireland".

In science fiction, the well-known author Jerry Pournelle has written several books about science-fiction mercenaries known as Falkenberg's Legion. Also, author David Drake has written a number of books about the fictional hovercraft armored regiment Hammer's Slammers. Both series of books are brutal in their portrayal of complex low-intensity warfare despite technological advances. Gordon R. Dickson's Dorsai!, part of his Childe Cycle, includes the planet Dorsai with a society structured like that of Switzerland. Like the old style swiss mercenaries who hired themseves out to the Italian states, Dorsai hire themselves out to other planets. The webcomic Schlock Mercenary follows the galactic adventures of a 31st-century mercenary company.

The computer game series Jagged Alliance focuses on a team of mercenaries attempting to conquer small fictional third-world countries. In 2005, LucasArts released a game for PlayStation 2 and Xbox titled Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, where the player controls one of three mercenaries in North Korea, and is able to accept mercenary contracts from the Allies, South Korea, China, and the Russian Mafia.