The Presence is a strategic horror-game that puts you in a Victorian-era ghost story. Each game is either fully cooperative or one-versus-all, only you have no way of knowing which one. One player plays as a spirit with unknown intentions. The others play as the visitors, who need to work together to determine whether the spirit is on their side, while also trying to find out what it wants. The visitors will try to work together while struggling with darkness, isolation, and the constant haunting of the spirit, who in turn either tries to earn their trust or secretly plan their demise.

Regardless of the intentions of the spirit-player, the trust of the visitors is valuable to its goals. A benevolent spirit needs their trust to play its more powerful actions. If it does not believe that they will manage in time, it can instead turn on them and win by other means. A vengeful spirit can bide its time, sabotaging their efforts in hidden ways and use their trust to make the visitors expose themselves. Then, when they are vulnerable it can reveal its true nature.

The visitors are represented on the board while the spirit moves through the house ethereally and can be in multiple locations at once. While visitors are limited by doors and passageways, the spirit can move freely, surrounding them. While the spirit-player may have very limited means to communicate, the visitors have an even tougher choice to make. If they separate and go different ways, they will not be able to speak at all. Then, they can only watch on in horror as their friend must make a perilous choice with no support.

The actions of the spirit leave clues as to its true intentions and, when the secrets of the house are gradually revealed, the visitors may realize what they think they know is fatally wrong.