The game itself starts out quite slowly, you begin the game as the main character called Kayron Jarvis, who has just inherited a brand new space ship from his recently dead father, the ship of course, is the Darkstar One. As the story develops you start to learn how Kayron's father died, how the Darkstar One is tied into the full story and the game starts to open out. As mentioned, the Darkstar One is the one and only ship you have during the game, but that doesn't mean you are stuck with it in the same form it is at the start of the game, you can add to it, expand it, improve weapons etc.

The story is pushed on through voice acting work both during gameplay and though some very entertaining cutscenes, some of these are pre-rendered while most of them are in-game. The game manages to give you, the player a better balance of playing through the main plot and allowing you to fly through the galaxies doing your own stuff and being your own boss than Freelancer ever did. There are cases during the game in which you have to take certain missions to move the plot along this opens up more systems for you to visit thanks to getting better space drives for your ship, but the game is full of so many little missions that it never feels like you are locked into doing specific things all the time like in Freelancer.