Two thousand years ago, an advanced race known as Sartan split the world into five realms. The mensch races - the humans, dwarves, and elves - were split between four of those worlds named for the four elements, and the race of Patryn was banished to the deadly Labyrinth. After those two thousand years, some of the Patryn have found their way through the Labyrinth's exit. The game's protagonist is a young Patryn named Haplo, and his mission, given to him by his lord Xar, is to sail through the Death Gate into each of the other worlds to find each world's seal piece, so that the Patryn may reconstruct the planet and have revenge on the Sartan.

Death Gate is an adventure game that follows the tradition of interactive fiction with graphics. The entire game is viewed from first-person perspective and has plenty of text interaction through selectable verb commands, text descriptions, and dialogues with multiple choices. There are also many puzzles in the game, most of them inventory-based. A unique gameplay feature is Haplo's ability to cast magic spells, which are essential for solving many of the game's puzzles.