Evander Holyfield's "Real Deal" Boxing is a boxing simulation. Holyfield is the only licensed boxer, the rest are fictitious. Rather than a fanciful approach like Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, the developers went for a more strategic simulation. The game is played from a pseudo-3D side view with moving around the ring handled by scrolling the backdrop and moving the ropes. A top down camera is shown at the top of the screen.

Players can either play a quick exhibition match or fight their way through the Career mode, using a created boxer to work their way up the 15-boxer ranking list until they fight Holyfield himself. During character creation, players can choose the fighter's head, color of skin, trunks and hair, physical and mental attributes. The physical attributes are dominant hand, power, speed, recovery and stamina. The mental attributes are style (brawler, dancer, boxer and dodger), killer instinct (low, medium or high) and favorite punches (jabs, straights or hooks aimed at head or torso, one for each hand). Between matches, career mode offers various exercises to assign the boxer to improve his stats.