The basic gameplay and game mechanics fall into the subgenre of Grand Theft Auto clones, as the player can travel throughout the game world freely, commandeer vehicles, do whatever they want in terms of attacking and/or killing innocent civilians, and progress through the storyline at their own leisure, spending as much time traversing the city as they wish.

The Godfather II is an action-adventure and role-playing game played from a third-person perspective, in which the player controls Dominic, an original character created for the game, who becomes the Don of the Corleone family in New York City, and Michael Corleone’s underboss.