Quest for Glory II: Trial By Fire is the second game in the Quest for Glory series. It takes place in the land of Shapier, with our plucky hero having to deal with four elemental creatures and unraveling a conspiracy in the city of Rasier. Sidequests include some minor thieving as a thief, joining the eternal order of fighters as a fighter, and passing the W.I.T. entrance exam as a thief. In addition, all character classes have the chance to become a Paladin for the next game by doing honorable actions, although this is particularly hard for a thief.

The interface is strictly conducted over a parser, typing pauses the action in the game to allow you to choose a command, and some built in verbs are available as short-cuts, such as accessing the map or your compass. Spells and actions must sometimes be targeted with a mouse, and you can right click on most objects to do an equivalent "look" command, so you don't have to struggle to figure out what they should be named. Conversations are two-way as before: you can ask about topics, such as rumors, elementals, and so on, or tell someone about a topic to relay information or initiate a conversation.

In addition to solving puzzles, you'll also have to engage in combat and work on perfecting your skills. You will have two or three gauges of health depending upon your character class. All character classes have Health Points and Stamina. Your health points determine how much damage you can take, and are decreased when you suffer damage in battle or gameplay situations. Losing all your health points kills you and ends the game. Your stamina determines how many actions you can perform, every time you perform an action it consumes a little bit of stamina. Performing actions which require stamina drains it and if you run out of stamina doing strenuous activity like running will lower your health. Some actions in battle can not be performed without sufficient stamina as well. Wizards also have mana points, which determine how many spells can be cast, each one draining a set amount of mana. If you are poisoned your health will drop steadily until it wears off or you cure yourself, and you also need to rest and get meals at the inn or eat rations to keep your character from starving or dying of exhaustion.

Your abilities and the ways you solve puzzles will vary with your character class. Fighters generally have to rely on brute force, and using strength and fighting monsters to clear their way through things. Thieves will rely on picking locks and breaking into places, using stealth to avoid notice, or disarming traps. Magic Users will want to use spells from a distance generally and find some creative application of magic to get through a situation. Paladins share traits in common with Fighters and Magic Users, and will generally take an approach more similar to Fighters, but they also get more helpful abilities at their disposal and have the ability to participate in more sidequests.

The game also uses a time-sensitive system where the game transitions between different hours of the day and night. You can rest for an hour at a time to recover some health, stamina, and mana, and you can go sleep for the night to restore all your stats. Most activities in Shapier can only be done during the day, but thieves may have additional options at night. Time passes extremely quickly while traveling, and you may be best off building a fire with a flame dart spell or a tinderbox at night to avoid getting woken up by monsters when you may be low on health or vulnerable. Keeping a large number of rations is also essential for making long trips across the world map.