Perfect Dark is an action game that is presented from a top-down perspective and where the player can move and shoot in eight directions.[1] The player controls Joanna Dark and must initially complete a training mode where she will have to complete a series of challenges. These include the use of stealth, in which the player is challenged to kill enemies by sneaking up behind them without making noise (e.g. running or reloading weapons), complete a memory type game that involves pressing various buttons in a specific order to open up doors, and shoot targets from a first-person perspective.[2]
The game's single-player campaign is divided into several missions that the player has to complete while fighting enemies and completing objectives. Objectives range from rescuing hostages to exploring areas and recovering items such as keycards, explosives or laptop computers, which are useful to hack into electronic devices. The player can loot new weapons, health and ammunition from enemy corpses.[3] The game features several mini-games, including a driving level and a sniper mission, as well as numerous boss battles that must be defeated to progress to the next level. By beating any of these mini-games, the player can access them in the game's extras menu.[2] The game also includes a multiplayer mode where two players may compete in four different types of deathmatch modes. These range from the standard kill-the-other-person on a pre-set time to the Counter Force mode, where the first player must rescue hostages while the second player has to guard them. Various multiplayer maps are unlocked as the player progresses through the single-player campaign.[2]