[6] The main gameplay elements are exploring the galaxy, gathering resources, building a fleet, defeating enemy ships, and conversing with aliens.

The new ship set out to Sol to make contact with Earth, but shortly before reaching Sol the little fleet was attacked by an unknown probe; The expedition commander, captaining the expedition's Earthling Cruiser, intercepted the alien ship before it could damage the defenseless Precursor starship, but was killed in the short fight, leaving the genius young man in command.

The Captain gains the support of the skeleton crew of Earth's caretaker starbase and ventures out to contact the other races to find out what's happened since the end of the war and try to recruit allies in to a New Alliance of Free Stars against the Ur-Quan.

Notably the Captain finds the Chenjesu and Mmrnmhrm on Procyon undergoing their own plan to merge in to a composite species powerful enough to defeat the Ur-Quan, and captures a psychic alien Dnyarri, which the Captain discovers is a member of the race that brutally enslaved the galaxy millennia ago, causing the Ur-Quan's hegemonic and genocidal rampage around the galaxy.

[16] Ford also cites their shared love of author Jack Vance from their childhood, and were intrigued by the idea of exaggerated societies taken to their extremes, and intelligent characters committed to an interesting agenda.

[14] Reiche would cite the influence of numerous fiction authors over the Star Control series, including Jack Vance, Orson Scott Card, Robert Heinlein, David Brin, and Andre Norton.

[21] The map also added circles of influence for the aliens, not just to describe their location, but to provide narrative hints about their changing power, relationships, and stories.

[13] This was the last time that Reiche would design a game using pen and paper, including dozens of flow charts for the major plot points, player choices, and dialog trees.

[22] Paul Reiche III describes this creative process, "I know it probably sounds weird, but when I design a game like this, I make drawings of the characters and stare at them.

[13] The main antagonist the Ur-Quan were already understood as a race of slavers in Star Control, so Reiche developed their motivation by writing their backstory as slaves themselves.

[23] They were also able to hire fantasy artist George Barr through mutual friends,[24][25] who had inspired the game's "pulp science-fiction" feel, and happened to be living nearby.

[14] Long-time friend Erol Otus was another collaborator,[26] who Reiche describes as contributing the widest range of content, including music, text, art, illustrations for the game manual, and (later) voice-acting.

[27] The creators later clarified that Accolade did not interfere with development and was satisfied to publish the game in any form, and that this was important to their creative freedom and artistic success.

[14] Fred Ford decided to financially support the team for the final months of development,[28] and they were ultimately able to finish the project with the help of numerous family, friends, and other collaborators.

[13] Further music came from existing team member Erol Otus, who first composed the Ur-Quan theme on a synthesizer before it was re-sampled and exported to the MOD file format.

[14] The critically acclaimed soundtrack would include music from Aaron Grier, Erol Otus, Eric Berge, Riku Nuottajärvi, and Dan Nicholson.

[32] In the end, the 3DO version would feature 11 hours of voice audio, including performances from Reiche, as well as friends Greg Johnson and Erol Otus.

They also praised the impressive graphics and the voice acting's use of unique vocal inflections for each alien race, and concluded that the game is "an addicting epic sci-fi adventure that will have patient space explorers and zero-gravity tacticians glued to their screens for a million hours.

"[39] The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly likewise praised the accessible interface and impressive graphics, but complained that the alien voices are sometimes difficult to understand.

Hardcore Gaming selected the game for their 2007 list of favorite classics, with "a combination of sandbox space travel and arcade-style combat, a plotline equal to any space opera you can name, hundreds of pages' worth of interactive dialog and dozens of memorable, unique races, it's easy to see why most reviews of Star Control II quickly turn into love letters.

Club also included the Ur-Quan in their 2021 list of best aliens in pop culture, describing them as "tremendous sci-fi villains, importing heady old-school concepts into Star Control's relentlessly fun space-based action".

[77] The world design of Star Control II is also celebrated, with Paste magazine giving it top ranking on their list of "games that capture the infinite potential of space".

Don't be fooled by the fantastical setting - the story maturely dealt with wide ranging issues, from genocide to religious extremism, and still remained terrifying, touching, and damn funny in places.

"[84] The magazine would revisit this in a 2014 retrospective, calling it a "must play for space loving gamers", offering "a massive experience filled with exploration, action and some of the funniest aliens you'll run into any video game".

Tim Cain credits Star Control II with inspiring his open-ended design in both Fallout and Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, calling it his personal favorite RPG of all time and one of the best computer games ever developed.

[91][92] Founder of BioWare Ray Muzyka also cites Star Control as an inspiration, stating that "the uncharted worlds in Mass Effect comes from imagining what a freely explorable universe would be like inside a very realistic next-gen game.

"[93] Indeed, journalists have noted heavy similarities in the story, characters, and overall experience of Mass Effect,[94][95][96] even calling Star Control II a spiritual predecessor.

[89] FACT notes that Star Control II's "galaxy-spanning sci-fi setting whose adventure elements foreshadowed Mass Effect by a good 15 years".

[81] PCGamesN explains further, that "while Star Control II is a little clunky and esoteric by modern standards, this was the Mass Effect of its era, defining many of the elements you might have taken for granted in Bioware's classic sci-fi RPG series.

[102] Star Control II is sometimes credited as a spiritual successor to Starflight, inheriting its legacy as a genre-defining space exploration game.