Nina must make her way through a large cruise ship, finding keys and scanning prints to gain access to more areas while using stealth to avoid the guards. When stealth fails, the game's more unique aspects come into play. Although game uses 3rd-person perspective, on certain occasions it switches to 1st-person view such as when using a sniper rifle, swimming underwater, or crawling the ducts. Death by Degrees uses analog sticks to perform the attacks. The left stick moves Nina, and make her dodge when tapped instead of moved gradually, while the right stick makes her attack in whatever direction it is tapped, so attacks can be executed in any direction. Blocks are executed by holding the right stick toward the enemy at the precise moment of attack. In fights, you can disable enemies quickly with precisely-aimed bone-breaking maneuvers.