In DANTE: Inferno, you will journey through the nine circles of hell as a part of a narrative campaign that, at the end of each circle, culminates into a showdown with one or more of the legendary characters found in The Divine Comedy. This divides the gameplay into two main parts, the Chronicles Phase (narrative exploration based on branching storybook passages), and the Confrontation Phase (boss battle).

The fundamental aspect of the Chronicles Phase is the Book of Chronicles (a storybook) which is an immersive window into the realm of nightmares as it was envisioned by Dante Alighieri. While the game environment is deeply rooted within this source material, you will have the opportunity to experience a fresh story set within a faithful representation of Inferno, with Dante as your guide.

In the Confrontation Phase, you will face an enemy in a dynamic, tactical, three-dimensional combat. Every confrontation has a basic objective and special objectives, which will change depending on the choices you make while exploring each circle. This phase will end either when you fulfill one of the objectives or when the players are defeated.

The Chronicles Phase embodies the fundamental aspects of the way we’ve envisioned The Divine Comedy recreated within the board game medium. It’s interesting, it’s fun, and it gives players constant agency through a steady stream of decisions to make and dilemmas to consider, as they appear in the narrative passages. Although the primary aim of the Chronicles Phase is to bring the journey through Inferno alive through a breathtaking and captivating story, it will also drastically alter the course of every upcoming battle.

The world of Inferno is alive, and the characters you meet along the way have their own motivations and agendas, and they are willing to take advantage of the opportunities that the current turmoil opens for them. The game is a complex ecosystem with many different options on how to interact with it. Over time, your decisions will determine which way the campaign will end.

The path of the story will be paved through narrative passages. The way you interact with the world around you will shape the story of the current circle you are in and may also have an impact on the subsequent circles. Whenever you make a key decision that may alter the course of the narrative, you will receive a Discovery Card as a record of the current state of the game world. The game will then build the reality of each circle based on the Discovery Cards that you have acquired.

Every decision that you make during the Chronicles Phase will also shape the Confrontation in some way. The Champions might receive an advantage in the form of new Equipment Cards, but they may also succumb to the temptations that will cause the enemy to grow stronger. There are allies to find that can help you, but also the possibility of making new enemies that will join the fight against you. The branches of the narrative may even lead you to alternative Confrontation objectives with completely different rewards at the end of the showdown. In the end, what you will do during the Chronicles Phase will alter the Confrontation not only from the mechanical perspective but also from the narrative standpoint.

The emergent narrative of the Confrontation Phase reaches a point where talking about what happened during the latest gaming session feels like describing a scene from a movie. And that’s exactly the experience we wanted to bring into the game. Your enemies won't just stand still and let you beat them. The enemy turn was designed to be as streamlined and fast-paced as possible to further help minimize the downtime for the players.

Most actions that your enemies will take during the confrontations will be triggered by reactions within the player's turn. They are constantly looking for weaknesses to exploit and take advantage of. These interactions between the players and enemies create a constantly shifting battlefield since every attack you make involves the possibility of the enemy moving around, taking their own action, and thus taking control over the flow of the battle. Counterattacks often involve moving (as in grabbing, throwing, or bashing) furniture, buildings, or even Champions, who might find themselves being forcefully relocated from one end of the board to another. The players need to take these possibilities into account and, when necessary, be ready to swiftly adjust their plans.

In DANTE: Inferno, the Player’s turn during the Confrontation Phase is collective and dynamic. Since all players play together, so there is no separate turn for each Character. Players can do actions in any order they wish and can also freely alternate among themselves. This dynamic turn structure supports an unparalleled level of synergy and teamwork among the players. However, the players are not completely free because their actions may trigger reactions and counterattacks of the enemies. With every counterattack, the situation on the battlefield might drastically change: objects may move, enemies might sidestep the Characters to gain a tactical advantage, and the environment can be restructured. Evaluating the options and adapting to the flow of the battle will be the difference between success and failure. The dynamic turn also almost entirely eliminates downtime, as players are actively involved in planning the next steps and evaluating the changes happening during the fight.

Buildings, chests, pillars, and all other objects on the board play a much more significant role during the encounters than being mere decorations to look at and perhaps sidestep whenever you move around. Each of these objects has a special effect that can be exploited in combat not only by the players but even by the enemies. There is a myriad of possible interactions that take the environment into account, which adds extra layers of strategic depth to every confrontation. Both pillars and arks can be used by your enemies as improvised weapons. Champions can climb on elevated structures to gain a height advantage that can be crucial for tactical leverage or to activate some of their abilities. Extra levels of height above the ground can also allow Champions to avoid damage from some of the Malefactors' attacks. But on the other hand, the Malefactors can break down the pillars to throw the champions back down on the ground, perhaps even causing fall damage if the height was too big. The amount of interaction with the battleground environment is unparalleled.

The Champions have no recollection of how they got into the Inferno, as a dark, impenetrable shadow clouds the memory of their past selves. As they travel further ahead, questions like who they are or what they have done to end up in this place will find the answers through triggers in the narrative passages; answers that will be based on the choices that you make along the way.

Throughout the course of the campaign, the branching story will lead the Champions to discover new equipment, learn new traits, and, as a direct consequence of player choices, build and reinforce who they are, which will be represented by the skills that each Champion will unlock. Each path has it's own rewards, and so in one playthrough, you might find a new weapon instead of a trait. Finally, the Champions will also receive choices leading to new abilities that will gradually replace the initial deck of cards they have available.

The Companion gameplay faithfully replicates the experience and tactical decisions of playing in a group of four while minimizing the necessary upkeep. Whenever your player count is less than four, the remaining spots will be taken up by Companions, which are simplified versions of the standard characters that are easy to control and don't require handling separate decks of cards. Everything you need to simulate a full 4-player tactical experience during the Confrontation Phase is a Companion overview card and a few tokens. The result is a vastly reduced table space you need for the game and almost nonexistent upkeep on top of that. This mechanic allows you to easily substitute any number of players whenever you need to.