Ultimate Werewolf is an interactive game of deduction for two teams: villagers and werewolves. The villagers don't know who the werewolves are, and the werewolves are trying to remain undiscovered while they slowly eliminate the villagers one at a time. A moderator (who isn't on a team) runs the game. The game takes place over a series of days and nights. Each day, the players discuss who among them is a werewolf and vote out a player. Each night, the werewolves choose a player to eliminate, while the Seer learns if one player is a werewolf or not. The game is over when either all the villagers or all the werewolves are eliminated.

Ultimate Werewolf Legacy uses gameplay similar to Ultimate Werewolf, but you no longer have single standalone games as players and the village itself have attributes that are retained between games, with events that take place in the first games having effects that ripple through remaining games. Make a bad decision early on, and it can haunt the village for years to come! Players can earn titles, which provides them with special abilities in future games, regardless of their role. Players are each given a public family card in addition to their secret role card, and they team up with the other members of their family to work together...unless one or more of their family members is secretly working against them.

As for the village, there are multiple paths that the game may take, and as a result the experience you have playing through the entire game will differ from someone else who is playing with another set of people. This also allows players to play through the campaign multiple times, with a different set of roles, rules, and environments each time.

At the center of Ultimate Werewolf Legacy is an oversized, 80 page diary, that walks the game moderator through every session. The diary has been designed so that players with no previous Werewolf playing experience can both play and moderate. The diary is structured into five distinct chapters with three game sessions in each chapter, as well as an introductory preface game session. Players can jump in and out for individual sessions, but ideally they'll play all the sessions in a chapter. Each chapter can be played in a single evening. At the end of the sixteen-game session campaign, the diary will be a record of exactly what happened in your village, and who was ultimately responsible for what it became over time.

Replay packs that contain a new diary and an additional set of family cards will be sold separately, allowing players to play through the entire campaign again.