A Week in Hell is a solitaire wargame at the platoon level. It retraces the fighting of five USMC companies for the liberation of downtown Hue from January 31 to February 6, 1968. A Week in Hell simulates combat where the player controls marines attempting to take control of almost the entire map and rendezvous with units entrenched at the northern edge of the map. Units begin game off-board, and the games is divided into seven turns (which each has 10 phases), each turn representing one day of fighting. A unit can either fight or move, and after it has defeated an enemy unit it needs to stay one turn in the same spot to "mop up".