In Villainous: Wicked To The Core, each player takes control of one of three Disney characters, either the Evil Queen from Snow White, Hades from Hercules, or Dr. Facilier from The Princess and the Frog. Each player has their own deck of villain cards, their own fate deck, a game board, and a three-dimensional figure.

In a turn, the active player moves their character to a different location on their board, takes one or more of the actions shown at that location (primarily using cards from their hand), and then replenishes their hand back to four cards. The cards are allies, items, effects, and conditions, and with these cards, players must complete their character's unique objective.

One of the actions allows players to choose an opponent, draw two cards from their fate deck, and play one of the two cards onto that player's board, covering two of the four action spaces. The fate deck includes heroes, items, and action effects from the character's respective movie, and with these cards, players can disrupt the plans of that specific player.

Villainous: Wicked To The Core can be played as a standalone game or combined with the base game Villainous released in 2018.