Sherlock Holmes has passed. And with London's greatest detective no longer in the way, those with villainous minds decide to wreak as much terror as possible on the populace — and you are one of those dastardly no-goodniks!

While Europe sits undefended in Victorian Masterminds, you and other players send your henchmen to different cities to use their varied abilities, collect material for your steampunk-inspired contraptions, destroy buildings, and complete missions. Meanwhile, the Secret Service follows your path of destruction. Every contraption is different and allows you to take different actions, leading to highly strategic, asymmetric gameplay.

In more detail, during the game, players will take turns placing one of their five agent tokens — Henchman, Machine, Saboteur, Pilot, Number 2 — face down on one of the five action spaces. As soon as there are three tokens on a space, those tokens are flipped and activated, first in first out, with each agent carrying out its individual action in addition to whatever takes place in that space. When an evil mastermind completes their contraption or the Secret Service brings this villainy to a halt, the game is over, and whoever has generated the most victory points wins.