Strife's gameplay is standard for the first-person shooter genre; the action is observed from the protagonist's viewpoint, and most of the game involves combat with the Order's infantry and war robots.

[3] The protagonist also has an inventory where he can keep items for later use, such as first aid kits for healing, protective armor, or gold coins.

[5][7] The game is set some time after a catastrophic comet impact, which brought a deadly virus onto the planet.

In the resulting plague, millions of people died, while other victims became mutated and began hearing the voice of a malevolent deity.

[5] The unnamed protagonist of the game is a wandering mercenary, captured by Order troops near the town of Tarnhill.

[5] After killing the guards and escaping, he meets a man named Rowan, who makes him an offer to join the Front.

The protagonist receives a communication device through which he remains in contact with a female member of the Front, codenamed Blackbird.

[12] To this end, the mercenary visits a knowledgeable being called "The Oracle", who reveals that the next fragment is being held by another of the Order's leaders, The Bishop.

Within the ship waits an alien being known as "The Entity"; it is the one responsible for creating the Order and taking over the minds of mutated people.

There he encounters the Entity, but the being speaks with Blackbird's voice, and implies that it was manipulating the protagonist throughout the game in order to regain freedom and take over the planet.

[23] After killing the Entity, the ending sequence is shown, this time less optimistic: the cure for the virus has not been invented and mankind's future is uncertain.

[24] Strife was originally being developed by Cygnus Studios, the creators of Raptor: Call of the Shadows, for id Software.

[25] However, internal conflicts soon arose and employees split off from Scott Host, the original founder of Cygnus Studios, and he re-located back to Chicago and Strife was essentially cancelled.

[29][30] The enhanced version of the game was released as Strife: Veteran Edition by Night Dive Studios on Steam on December 12, 2014.

Reviewers took note of the novel gameplay: unlike most previous first-person shooters, such as Doom, the player must cooperate with friendly characters in Strife, while killing everyone in sight ends badly.

[41] Paul Dean likewise concluded that Strife did not receive the attention it deserved back in its day, and encouraged readers to play the game.

[7] Both journalists compared Strife to the later Deus Ex, a more commercially successful attempt to combine the first-person shooter formula with role-playing elements.