Unending Galaxy features a dynamic- and fully-simulated universe where the different factions interact in real time through trade, war and diplomacy. Their military production and expansion are tied to their economy in an ecosystem consisting of thousands of NPC ships populating hundreds of sectors. Global chains of events will also periodically shake the galaxy.

The player and the factions controlled by the game gain money not only through the production and trading of items and asteroid mining, but also through piracy, smuggling, bounty hunting, scavenging, and even hunting space creatures. Some factions are more focused on some of these methods than others.

Planets host colonies that contribute to the economy and military of their respective owners.

Select one of the nine available tech groups and customize your faction with unique abilities, laws and traits. Customize the various maps with different rules, set the initial expansion of the various factions, and their starting funds. Also set the game's pace and play on one of the five hand-crafted maps or use the procedural generator to play with an unending supply of custom maps.

Unending Galaxy features amazing and unique music tracks written by Alexander Jordan alongside other classics.

The game can be played from both the viewpoints of a pilot and of a faction.

As a pilot, gain reputation in a sandbox environment by completing missions or saving passengers lost in space. Raid cargo ships or hunt pirates. Peacefully trade medicine or smuggle drugs. Chat with other pilots, buy new ships, build stations, explore strange solar systems. Help or disrupt the AI controlled factions.

As a faction, conquer valuable solar systems and asteroid fields using military fleets built by your shipyards using resources produced by your docks and colonies. Conduct diplomacy, sign treaties or back-stab other empires.

Control multiple ships and switch between them at will in real time with active pausing.

Unending Galaxy features over 80 different ships ranging from tiny fighters to large battleships and carriers. Use shields and weapons like laser beams, homing mines, missiles, particle cannons, and plasma launchers. Quickly give orders to your ships through keyboard shortcuts or with your mouse on the map (with standard real time strategy game controls) in battles ranging from small skirmishes to large fleet confrontations.

In Unending Galaxy, you can micromanage everything yourself or let the various managers handle the tasks needed to run your faction like station or ship building, exploration, trading, or even military operations, so you can focus on the areas that you enjoy the most. Your ships can be controlled automatically also; give them "fire-and-forget" jobs like trading, scavenging or asteroid mining and let them make a profit while you are busy doing more important things.

The deluxe edition features a complete and fairly easy to use modding toolkit. You can add new or modify existing ships, weapons, stations, and even factions. You can make your own maps or redesign the whole economy. Unending Galaxy also comes with a mod manager which allows you to easily toggle your mods on and off. In the Steam version, you can even upload and mods to/from Steam Workshop.