The game uses stealth mechanics inspired by Metal Gear Solid series, allowing the player to plan courses of action to work through levels without being detected by guards, dogs, and automated security turrets to reach specific objectives.

The game presents a modern take on the Robin Hood legend, where a young thief discovers a plot for a military coup involving various heists, and uses a device called "Volume", with the assistance of its artificial intelligence to perform these heists in a virtual manner and broadcasting them to the world at large to make the coup known.

Robert Locksley (voiced by Charlotte McDonnell) is a petty thief that finds a device called "Volume", which allows the user to simulate heists that is part of a secret military coup attempt.

[2] Locksley eventually faces off against Guy of Gisbourne (Andy Serkis), re-envisioned for the game as the CEO of a company that has taken over the country of England and runs the nation as a corporatocracy.

[5] Volume's gameplay has been designed by Bithell similar to the stealth elements of the Metal Gear Solid series.

[6] The game is presented in a top-down third-person view of the Volume simulation, showing a floor layout, Robert's avatar, and several guards and other antagonists that patrol the area.

Guards behave in established patterns, and the player can disrupt these by making noise, such as flushing a toilet, or purposely cross their line of sight to draw them away from a patrol route.

Bithell's inspiration for Volume was directly from his earlier enjoyment of playing the Metal Gear games since he was a teenager.

[6][8] Bithell expected that Volume would still have a limited budget, £30,000 compared to the £5,000 he needed for Thomas Was Alone, but the extra funding has been used to hire additional programming help and 3D modelers.

[10] Volume was originally planned to be a timed exclusive for the PlayStation 4 and Vita platform sometime in 2015, with the Windows and OSX releases set a month later.