Papers Please is an 8-Bit pixel-art style adventure taking place in the fictive communistic state Artrozka. You are playing in the role of a boarder official verifying the documents of people who want to enter Artrozka. The game starts easy with simply checking for validity and authenticity of passports of immigrants and Artrozka citizens. However, throughout the game on each working day you receive new instructions and rules that have been added, removed, or altered. For example, foreign immigrants must have valid work permit, health certificate or are not allowed to enter the country at all if they are from a certain other country. Thus, figuring out if someone is allowed to enter or not becomes increasingly difficult. Making a wrong decision to let somebody enter Artrozka will cause deductions on your salary sheet at the end of each working day. Since each working day is limited in time you must verify quickly enough to earn enough money for paying your rent and your family’s expenses.

Most of the passengers you verify are generated randomly, but dedicated encounters throughout the 30-day-length story are added driving the story and special events. A mysterious organization wants you to let their members to enter the country to liberate it, people offer you extra money for let workers in or even your supervisor advises you to let a certain diplomat pass. These special encounters add most of the atmosphere to the game as in the moment of making a decision you will not know its consequences which often just kick in days later.

Based on your performance how many people you can check properly and your decisions in those story-encounters the game has various endings. However not a full playthrough is needed to verify alternative decisions as you can start at any previous day you already completed. The game will create a tree-like structure for your save-games. Once you replay a day with different decisions a new branch in the save-game tree is created allowing to follow the new story alternative without losing the old ones.