Though described as an MMORTS, Shattered Galaxy's gameplay is closer in flavor to a MMORTT game. Instead of commanding an entire war machine, including infrastructure, supplies, resources and objectives, players are given control of a small squad of units (6 to 12), which they control alongside as many as 20 teammates, each with similar squads, and against similar opposition. Likewise, battles do not center around the destruction of the opponent's base, but rather around Points of Contention, of which there may be anywhere from one to five.

These "POCs" are reddish circles on the ground which must be seized by occupying them for a certain period of time (generally 1 minute and 30 seconds). If the attacking side ever controls all of them, they immediately win; alternately, when the game's built-in 15-minute battle timer runs out, the side with the majority of POCs is declared the winner.

The limiting factor here is the maximum amount of units a single player can have, which for demo players is 48. Another thing that makes SG different from typical MMORTS games is the pace of battle. Because the maps are small, and there are often 15-40 players on the map at the same time, the battles can be intense and relentless. However, there is little persistance to the map.

There is no building, and pretty much as soon as a battle ends over a territory, it can start all over again.   The game is free to play ad nausium, but there are benifits to paying. You gain access to promotional units, and you have the ability to move between several planets, with tougher opponents and badder units. In addition, there is an event called reincarnation that allows the restart of a player but with benefits such as special units and increased attributes.  

• Unlimited free play time option available!
• Massively multiplayer online warfare game combines the best of real-time strategy and role-playing game genres
• Thousands of players can be simultanously online in the Shattered Galaxy universe at once
• Over 50 players can engage simultaneously in a single battle
• Numerous planets on which to explore and wage combat
• Hundreds of items allowing for endless configurations and highly specialized units.
• Dozens of unique combat abilities, such as Cloak, Mind Warp, Carpet Bombing and Fusion Storm
• Multitude of factions each with their own government and society

 

Shattered Galaxy features an excellent unit custimization scheme that allows the player to assemble thier units, almost from the ground up. Add a more powerful engine for speed and energy output, change out the weapons to fire faster, harder, farther, add on some armor, there are even cloaking and phasing parts that give the unit special abilities.

 

At times this game plays much like an RPG. Your units gain levels through combat experience and your "Hero" character gains the ability to equip better tech, deploy more units, and help your units survive longer.