Dark Data is a split-screen FPS for up to four players borrowing heavily from the aesthetic and design of the N64 Rareware shooters Perfect Dark and Goldeneye.
The setting, which the developers jokingly claim is from an "unreleased mid-nineties film of the same name," is a cyberpunk Detroit in 2025 after a second Dot Com bubble bursts and all of the major websites of today go out of business. The servers containing the "dark data" that these companies have been collecting on people - picture all of what Google, Twitter, Facebook knows about you - are liquidated, and all of that personal data is released to the world. An economy of blackmail is immediately established in which any ne'er-do-well with an internet connection can gather data on anybody and use it to extort money from their victim. The "new libertarian government" ends up officially recognizing and regulating this industry with the development of "Dirtcoin," a cryptocurrency designed explicitly to protect and streamline the purchasing of this data. There is a plot about a hacker named Exy whose data is uncovered by a mysterious Mr. X, but the lack of a single player campaign means that none of this appears in the actual gameplay.
The game is intended to be played with a modern twin-stick controller (though it does allow for mouse and keyboard), but it notably also supports N64 controllers via Mayflash or Raphnet adapters.
There are five game modes: Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, a CTF mode called "Capture the Data," an Oddball mode called "Hold Your DEATH," and a King of the Hill mode called "Occupation." Each can be played alongside up to seven bots that can be set to "Normal," "Paranoid," and "Augmented" difficulty. Game settings can be further customized through the choice of fifteen weapon categories that determine what weapons will spawn during the match, adding collectible body armor and/or player-augmenting "stims" to the map, a radar, time and score limits, and friendly fire. As of Patch 1.3, there are eleven maps and seventeen weapons ranging from assault rifles to throwing knives to the time-honored proximity and remote mines.
Gameplay is deliberately quite similar to the Rare shooters: players begin with nothing but their fists and run around a map picking up weapons and boxes of ammo to shoot at each other with. Weapons each have their own category of ammo (small caliber for pistols, high caliber for rifles, batteries for energy weapons, etc.) and combat often involves heavy amounts of strafing and switching between numerous guns in one's arsenal. There are two notable differences from Dark Data's inspirations: the replacement of the Virtua Cop style crosshair aiming with a more modern ADS system, and a jump button. The game also actively recognizes and rewards headshots and killstreaks (double kill, triple kill, etc.). Each match ends with a list of honorific titles awarded to the players, such as "Settle Down" for the player who jumps the most, or "Comeback Kid" for the player who kills the most while at low health.
The game keeps persistent stats of the amount of time spent and kills made in each map overall, and players have a persistent "Dirtcoin" value as a running score affected by things like killstreaks and headshots. The developers intend to utilize it in a leaderboard and in future game modes, but as of Patch 1.3, there is no particular use for it.
Much like Perfect Dark, there is a fairly extensive mix-and-match character creator. Players can select different heads, hairstyles, wardrobes, and accessories and save them with a name for later use.
There is also a cheat system in which players who enter a valid code on a 10-key number pad in the cheat menu can unlock extra features like slow-mo or tiny character models.
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