Condemned: Criminal Origins puts on the guise of a CIA agent who specializes in investigating serial murders in order to find out the circumstances of the case about a strangled woman and a mannequin sitting opposite her. Soon, in a shooter with horror elements, the investigation takes completely unpredictable turns, and the hero turns out to be a key figure needed by the government, because he discovers unusual abilities.

Ethan Thomas is an FBI agent who is sent to yet another crime scene in Convict: Criminal Origins, which happens in an abandoned building full of hobos and psychopaths. Here the corpse of an unknown girl was found sitting at a table, opposite which a male mannequin was seated. The police assume that the murder was committed by the Compiler, a maniac whom they had been hunting for a long time. Soon a real chase begins in the building, because it turns out there is a criminal here besides the cops. The villain kills the protagonist's partners and frames him, having previously hinted that they are both on the same side. Ethan manages to convince his good friend Rose, who works in the laboratory, of his innocence, and she helps the guy over the phone to investigate the case. As the player progresses, he meets a friend of the protagonist's father named Malcolm Vanhorne. The agent is also on the trail of another maniac – the Tormentor, with whom Vanhorne's nephew Leland turns out to be connected. The case takes more unexpected turns, and the detective gets on the trail of a strange creature, which may be the culprit of what happened.

The emphasis in the game, despite the genre, is on hand-to-hand combat, where the character is able to use improvised objects, including axes, gas pipes, and sledgehammers. You will have to fight with drug addicts, homeless people, psychos, vagabonds and the most powerful of enemies – Oro cultists. During the battle, the special agent uses slopes, blocks, different types of weapons, which have different parameters, for example, power, speed and range, and is also used for other actions – a sledgehammer helps to knock down locks, a shovel breaks wires with combination locks, a crowbar allows you to open safes. Firearms are rarely used here, and the hero is not able to carry ammunition with him. As the gamer progresses, he also uses the tools needed to find clues, which allows him to look for traces of the killer.