Played from a third-person perspective, the player assumes control of nine different teenagers who must survive a night at the Hackett's Quarry.[2] The player must regularly make different decisions, which can change the character development, the plot, and the relationships between characters. All nine playable characters can die in multiple ways by the end of the game. Although the game lasts about ten hours, early deaths of certain characters may shorten it.
The game is divided into ten chapters, along with a prologue and epilogue. In between each chapter, as is traditional with Supermassive Games' horror games, there are occasional intermissions with a narrator, this time being the fortune teller, Eliza (Grace Zabriskie), Eliza addresses the player directly and guides their future choices by reading tarot cards that the player has collected throughout the game.
Due to the game's branching storyline, it has 186 different endings,[3] affected by player choices, performances in quick-time events, and vigilance in finding evidence and clues determine the game's conclusion, as well as the public's perception of the deaths that occurred at Hackett's Quarry. Once the player completes their first playthrough of the game, they will unlock Death Rewind, which allows them to undo three character deaths in each subsequent playthrough.[4] Players can disable certain gameplay elements such as button mashing, quick-time events, and aiming and shooting, allowing them to progress in the game with minimum input.[3]
