Superhot sets the player in a minimalistic environment, taking out hostile attackers that are trying to kill them. Weapons picked up by the player have limited ammunition and break easily, requiring the player to rely on defeating enemies to attain new weapons, or making melee kills. Taking a single hit from an enemy bullet kills the player, requiring them to restart the level. Though the game mechanics are typical of most shooters, time only progresses normally when the player moves or fires a gun, otherwise time is slowed; this is described in the game's tagline "Time Moves Only When You Move". This gives the player the opportunity to alter their actions as to avoid the path of bullets or to better assess their current situation.
The game originally was a three-level prototype browser game. In expanding to the full game, Superhot Team created a campaign mode across approximately thirty-one levels, estimated to be as long as Portal. The full game includes additional weapons, including explosives, melee weapons, and improvised weapons like billiard balls that can be thrown at enemies, and introduces computer opponents that have similar awareness as the player and can dodge the player's bullets. One significant change from the earlier prototype is that the player does not automatically pick up a weapon when they pass over it but must enact a specific control to do so, enabling the player to selectively choose and use weapons, or grab weapons as they fall out of an opponent's hands. The full game enables the player to jump and as long as the jump button or key is held, the player can slow down time to plan and perform actions, enabling aerial gunplay.
In the last portion of the campaign, the player becomes able to "hotswitch" into an enemy's body, wherein they take control over the target, with the previous body dying. The manoeuvre allows the player to escape projectiles that are unavoidable, but has a cooldown timer that prevents repeated use, and the new body also drops its weapons upon switching.
In addition to the campaign mode, the full release of Superhot includes an "endless" mode, where the player survives as long as they can against an endless stream of enemies. A "challenge" mode allows players to replay the campaign mode levels but under specific restrictions or requirements, such as completing the level within a limited amount of time or only using a specific type of weapon. The final game includes a replay editor to allow users to prepare clips to share on social media websites.
Plot
The Superhot narrative works in several metanarrative levels: the player plays a fictionalized version of themselves sitting in front of their DOS prompt, getting a message from their friend who offers them a supposedly leaked copy of a new game called superhot.exe, claiming that the only way to access it is with a crack. Launching the game immediately thrusts the player into a series of seemingly unconnected levels via different points of view, all based around killing hostiles, after which the game glitches out and disconnects. After this crash, the player's friend sends an updated version of the .exe file, apparently a new version of the game that fixes the "glitches".
As both the player and their friend play through superhot.exe, it becomes apparent that the player's presence in the game is monitored by whoever is responsible for the game – referring to itself as a "system" – and demands they cease playing via various methods, such as ominous threats showing the player's in-game residence, and altering the player's messages to their friend to urge them to stop playing, eventually harassing the player's friend into giving up on the game and engineering a fallout with them. As the player goes through more and more levels, each apparently targeting specific locales, the system's warnings grow more ominous, telling them the player is unaware of the consequences of their actions, eventually forcing the player to walk to their own in-game house and to their in-game player character, a figure wearing VR headgear, and punch themselves into unconsciousness. Upon doing so, the "game" glitches out, and the player character wakes with a severe head injury. Afterward, the system warns the player once again to stop using Superhot, and forces the player to quit the game entirely.
