Mankind has colonized the solar system and two political entities have emerged: the Alliance consisting of American, Australian, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, British and German forces, and The Coalition of Russian, Chinese and Middle-Eastern interests.

The game begins with a surprise attack on Fort Kennedy, where a peace treaty turns into a bloodbath: all of the inner four planets are overrun, including Terra herself, and the Italian and French fleets are utterly lost.

As with Wing Commander: Prophecy, the pilot's flying ability is the only measure by which success and failure are defined, though Starlancer does not feature as many branching mission paths.

Starlancer's story is continued in Chris Roberts' Freelancer project, though the two belong to different subgenres (the first is purely focused on action, the latter also features trading and the player can freely move through the game's universe when they are not on a mission).

[7][8] Chris Kramer of NextGen said of the PC version in its July 2000 issue, "You'll definitely love StarLancer on its own, and as an appetite for next year's FreeLancer [sic], we're already salivating.

Seven issues later, however, Kevin Rice said that the Dreamcast version "doesn't give the same intense experience as its big brother on PC, but it's still OK. Just be prepared to wrestle with controls beyond movement and weapons.