The player may optionally read a list questions and answers about the mission. When the player selects a mission, they are given a briefing, consisting of a dialog describing the mission and an animated map illustrating vessel positions and basic flight patterns.
There is also a room to view mission recordings, and a tech room to view information about every spacecraft that appears in the game. The combat chamber offers four extra missions for each craft, ranging from training scenarios to historical reenactments of important missions. The training simulator lets the player fly each of the pilotable Imperial craft through a complex obstacle course. While the main focus of gameplay is completing battles, the concourse also offers several other areas. Mission briefings and debriefings, cutscenes, and in-flight communication advance the story.Īfter selecting a pilot file, the player views the "concourse", a hub with doors to different features of the game. Although some of the tours can be played out of order, individual missions within each battle are played linearly. The storyline is divided across thirteen tours of duty, seven in the original, and three in each of the expansion packs, each of which has four to eight missions. Though playing on the side of the Star Wars saga's villain, the game presents Imperial forces as maintainers of peace and order in a tumultuous galaxy, which was reinforced as the player character mostly serves under the tactical genius Thrawn rather than the terrifying Darth Vader. Subsequent expansions focus on Admiral Thrawn's efforts to stop an Imperial traitor the final mission of the second expansion concludes just before the climactic battle at the end of Return of the Jedi. The original game ends with the player preventing a coup against Emperor Palpatine and being personally rewarded during a large ceremony. In addition to fighting Rebel Alliance forces, the player fights pirates, combatants in a civil war, and traitorous Imperial forces. As with X-Wing, the player's character is unnamed in the game however, an included novella and Prima Publishing's strategy guide name the character Maarek Stele and provide a background narrative. The game's plot begins soon after the Empire's victory on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back.