[5] Steve Beaton made a record-extending 33rd consecutive and final World Championship appearance, but lost in the second round to Daryl Gurney.

After 28 years with the PDC, referee Russ Bray retired at the end of the tournament after officiating his last televised ranking match in the world final.

[9] As part of its promotion of the event, Paddy Power announced that the triple 20 would be changed from its traditional red to green,[10] although this would later be revealed to be a hoax to raise awareness of the Big 180 campaign, for which the bookmaker would donate £1,000 to charity Prostate Cancer UK for every maximum score of 180 achieved during the tournament.

[11][12][13] Additionally, the Irish betting provider inaugurated the Ballon d'Art for the player who achieved the most maximum scores throughout the event.

At the end of the tournament, the PDC Order of Merit prize money from that event was deleted from their rankings.

[25] The previous year's winner Michael Smith was top of the two-year PDC Order of Merit and number one seed going into the tournament.

[7] The top seeds behind Smith, van Gerwen, Humphries, Wright and Price were 2023 World Matchplay champion Nathan Aspinall, 2022 UK Open champion Danny Noppert, Rob Cross, and Jonny Clayton, who, alongside Gerwyn Price, won the 2023 PDC World Cup of Darts.

Gian van Veen, the 2023 World Youth runner up and a European Championship semi-finalist, and 2023 ProTour event winners Ryan Joyce and Radek Szagański were also amongst the qualifiers.

As well as Pietreczko, Van Veen and Szagański, other players qualifying for their PDC World Championship debuts were Mario Vandenbogaerde, Richard Veenstra, Kevin Doets, Connor Scutt, Dylan Slevin, Lee Evans, Jules van Dongen.

Luke Littler, the 2023 World Youth Champion, and Wessel Nijman qualified from the 2023 PDC Development Tour series.

[27] Beau Greaves, the winner of the 2023 Women's World Matchplay, chose not to compete in the PDC Championship for which she had qualified, instead opting for the WDF.

Prakash Jiwa, the winner of the Indian Qualifier, was suspended by the Darts Regulation Authority on 16 November 2023 while an investigation is conducted into suspicious betting in the independent Modus Super Series.

Debutants via the international and invitation qualifiers were Simon Adams, Owen Bates, Stowe Buntz, Tomoya Goto, Man Lok Leung, Luke Littler, Wessel Nijman, Sandro Eric Sosing, Bhav Patel, Berry van Peer, Darren Penhall, Reynaldo Rivera, Alex Spellman and Thibault Tricole, who was the first ever player from France to qualify for a PDC World Championship.

The tournament began on 15 December, with defending champion Michael Smith avoiding a shock on the opening night at the hands of Dutch qualifier Kevin Doets, winning 3–2.

[39] Fourth seed and former two-time champion Peter Wright suffered a 3–0 defeat to Jim Williams,[40] who had whitewashed Guyanan Norman Madhoo in his opening match.

[41] 16 year old Luke Littler made history by averaging 106.2 in a 3–0 win against Dutchman Christian Kist, the highest ever achieved by a débutant at the event,[42] and followed this by defeating 2023 UK Open champion Andrew Gilding 3–1 in the second round.

[44] In total, 11 seeds were eliminated in the second round; in addition to Wade, Wright, Gilding, and Aspinall, Danny Noppert, Dirk van Duijvenbode, Dimitri van den Bergh, Josh Rock, Jose de Sousa, Callan Rydz and Kim Huybrechts all lost their first game.

[47] Former world champion Gerwyn Price was the highest ranked player to be eliminated in the third round, going down 4–2 to Brendan Dolan.

[48] Two unseeded players made it through to the fourth round, 16-year old Luke Littler continuing his debut run with a 4–1 victory over Matt Campbell and Scott Williams defeated Martin Schindler in a match which went all seven sets.

[49][48][50] Reigning champion Michael Smith's campaign to retain his title ended in the fourth round, being beaten 4–0 by Chris Dobey.

[50] Gary Anderson was also eliminated 4–3 by Brendan Dolan, while Raymond van Barneveld was knocked out 4–1 by Luke Littler, in a match that attracted considerable attention, with BBC Sport unusually running a liveblog of the match and highlighting the fact that Littler had not been born the previous occasion that Van Barneveld had won the World Championship.

[51] Littler's fellow unseeded player Scott Williams also made the quarter-finals, eliminating Damon Heta.

Luke Humphries again had to battle, going all the way to a sudden-death final leg against Joe Cullen before breaking his opponent's throw and keeping his Championship hopes alive.

[52] Rob Cross reached the quarter-final for the first time since his 2018 triumph with a 4–0 victory over Jonny Clayton, and Michael van Gerwen also had a 4–0 win over Stephen Bunting.

Williams again broke throw in the third leg of the eighth set and held the advantage to eliminate the three-time world champion and qualify for the first semi-final of his career.

Humphries went to the number 1 spot on the PDC Order of Merit for the first time following the tournament, whilst Littler rose 133 places to go 31st.

[66] The draw was held on 27 November 2023 and was conducted by former world champions Dennis Priestley and Phil Taylor.

[107][108] World Champion Luke Humphries achieved the most 180s with 73 to additionally win the inaugural Ballon d'Art trophy.