Dark Wraith is a first-person grid-based dungeon crawler game, similar to Wizardry or The Bard's Tale. The main character is Zion, a magic user that finds out that a friendly town-person's daughter has been kidnapped by the Dark Wraith as part of a periodic ritual sacrifice. Up to four other characters can accompany Zion as he searches various dungeons in search of the Dark Wraith. As with many Japanese dungeon crawlers, characters are not created by the player. Rather, they are met throughout the story. However, upon leveling up, the player gets to assign points to various skills and attributes. The game features turn-based combat with enemies appearing within the dungeon, similar to Might and Magic games.