Starshatter: The Gathering Storm integrates elements of real-time-strategy games by allowing fleet commanders to direct the battle on a tactical level, launching fighters and directing destroyers to defend the fleet and annihilate enemy forces. You will arm fighters for patrol or strike missions. You will send orders to your escorting destroyers and frigates to engage enemy starships or defend the fleet from attack by enemy fighters. You are the admiral, and you decide how to employ all of your forces in battle. It is all up to you.

Starshatter: The Gathering Storm extends the gameplay concepts of the classic sims by combining fighter and starship combat in a single game. You begin the game as either a fighter pilot or the captain of a small Frigate-class starship. As you progress through the game, you can earn promotions and awards until you are commanding a massive fleet carrier with three wings of fighters and a complete escort of warships. Starshatter: The Gathering Storm promotes airborne fighter combat to a first-class game component, allowing you to take-off and land at planetary bases, engage in aerial dogfights, and use air-to-ground missiles to destroy ground targets.

While in the role of a fighter embark on patrol, sweeps, bomber escorts, starship escorts, ground strikes or the dreaded capital starship strike. As a capital starship, experience fleet engagements, escorts, blockades, fighter operations, or the dangerous starbase assaults.

Starshatter: The Gathering Storm features some of the most impressive graphics and sounds to be found. Sound enhancements include voice acting and new sound effects, while graphic enhancements bring the game to a new visual level, but also we’ve included cockpit mode for fighters to support Track IR headsets!

Starshatter: The Gathering Storm dynamic mission system allows the campaign to be played and replayed differently each time. In the Starshatter: The Gathering Storm universe missions are generated based on what is going on in the entire campaign.

Players can select which missions to go on and the success or failure of that mission will affect what mission types are available next. Missions and play are split between fighters and starships, and each have a different set of potential missions to undertake. Completing missions gains you prestige and access to new ships and the ability to command squadrons of entirely fleets of fighters.

Starshatter: The Gathering Storm is also a space-sim modder's dream platform. Because Starshatter: The Gathering Storm was designed from the ground up to support so many different play styles - from space fighter combat to airborne strikes to starship battles to fleet tactical encounters - you can use it to create mods for just about any popular science fiction universe you can think of.