The game is played from a third-person perspective and its world is navigated on-foot or by vehicle. Players control Aiden Pearce, a highly skilled grey hat hacker who can hack into the "ctOS", a centralized operating system which manages the hyper-connected city of Chicago, and formed after a Northeast blackout of 2003 was caused by a hacker. An online multiplayer mode is also provided in the game, allowing up to eight players to engage in both cooperative and competitive gameplay in a recreation of the single-player setting