In short, Evochron Renegades is unique among freeform space-sims in that it offers a wide range of gameplay choices and activities including buying, trading, negotiating, bribing, spying, racing, transporting, mining, exploring, cleaning equipment, clearing paths through asteroid fields, recruiting, protecting, hiring crew members, fuel harvesting, and designing your ship. The upgrades, ships, equipment, money, and commodities you earn in the game can be used in both the single player and multiplayer modes. You don't have to give up your progress in the game when switching between single player and multiplayer, nor do you have to give up what you earn when you join different multiplayer sessions.

  Also, everything you do in the game takes place in a seamless universe without system 'walls', there are no required warp gates or trade lanes to restrict your travel and hold you back. You can travel anywhere you want, with or without jump drives and gates, as long as you have the fuel and time to get there. You can descend into planet atmospheres (without loading screens or sudden environment flipping) to land at city trade stations or explore for hidden items. You can escape to nebula clouds for sensor cover or hide in a massive asteroid cave for protection. If you're low on fuel and don't have money, but you have a tractor beam and fuel converter, then retrieve photon particles from nearby stars and emissive nebulae which can be processed into fuel.

  Design your ship for the role you want to play and customize the appearance by adjusting the position/scaling of the various parts of your ship. Whether it's combat, exploration, mining, trading, racing, or a variety of other activities, you'll find many ways to play and advance in the game. Below is a detailed list of the features available in Evochron Renegades.

• True freeform gameplay without plot restrictions, conditions, or limitations. Experience ultimate gameplay freedom and play the game the way you want to.
• Diverse gameplay choices and activities far beyond just combat and trading. Design and build a ship for speed, then compete in races for quick credits. Install a tractor beam that can be used to clean large solar arrays. Recover particles from stars and emissive nebulae, convert them into fuel, then sell the fuel for a large profit. Clear shipping paths of asteroids. Recover lost items and return them to nearby stations. There are many ways to make money and advance in the game.
• A vast seamless universe that lets you fly anywhere without loading screens or sudden environment flipping. Fly from planet to planet, star to star, solar system to solar system seamlessly.
• Interactive training mode to provide the necessary basics for flying your ship, managing its systems, and surviving in combat.
• For the first time in the series, join other players in cooperative contract objectives with the new enhanced multiplayer mode and share in the rewards.
• Unified gameplay architecture lets you keep the ship, upgrades, equipment, money, weapons, crew, and commodities you acquire in the game for use in both single player and multiplayer.
• Clan ID linking system lets players establish their indicated threat levels with other players in multiplayer. Players sharing a common ID in their callsigns are linked together as friendly contacts while different ID's are indicated as hostile.
• Challenge other players to multiplayer ship-vs-ship races and place the race course where you want in space.
• Seamless planet descents that can include weather effects such as rain, snow, and turbulence. Explore planets for hidden benefits, trade at city stations, mine their surfaces for valuable materials, or hide in their atmospheres... they are an important part of the game's interactive universe.
• New ship-to-ship trading and cargo system. Ship and trade weapons, upgrades, and equipment in addition to commodities. You can even load items from your cargo bay onto your ship, letting you carry more weapons, upgrades, and equipment beyond what you can install on your ship.
• Customizable universe that lets you move objects in space, replace them, remove them, and change the local environment.
• New high detail 3D cockpit with tiltable gauges and enhanced structures.
• Enhanced 3D game engine with new effects, objects, textures, and performance.
• Dynamic economy with realistic variable item availability.
• Beam weapons, a new class of cannons, are available for the player's ship in addition to traditional particle cannons and secondary weapons.
• Explore for hidden commodity and weapon storage containers which offer free reloading, upgrades, and other valuable items.
• Use your wealth to design and build a new ship, buy better weapons, hire crew members, recruit other ships, install upgrades, load commodities, and more.
• All new Shipyard lets you design and customize your ship for the role you want to play. Optimize your ship for defense, exploration, combat, racing, or transporting... the choice is yours. You can also position and scale each component to give your ship a unique appearance.
• No required trade lanes or warp gates to hold you back. The game's universe is yours to explore with an open space navigation system and built-in jump drives. Optional warp gates are available for faster long distance travel and you can also install new gates in desired locations with the game's customizable universe.
• Realistic zero gravity inertia based 'Newtonian' style flight model including complete 3-way rotation and 3-way direction control with optional variable input. An advanced inertial dampening system helps keep flight control simple in space, atmospheres, and gravity fields.
• Realistic environment interaction far beyond the genre's typical 'background wallpaper'. Nebula clouds, asteroid fields, planet atmospheres, moons, and more all provide unique options for shelter and strategy. Such environment elements include changes in gravity, fuel consumption, physics, sensor range, and visibility.
• Quick one-key access to jump drive navigation and inventory management. You control all system travel and inventory decisions right from the cockpit.
• Explore the game's massive universe with several secret locations to discover, hundreds of planets, and many unique objects/obstacles to encounter including black holes, asteroid caves, wormholes, and stars. Create your own custom systems to further populate the Evochron universe.
• Clue-based integrated story you can continue at virtually any time. Follow the beacons, solve the clues and voyage through many systems in a quest to discover the mystery of what happened to the Renegades. Players who take on the challenge of the story quest and succeed will discover a very beneficial feature.
• Supports keyboard, mouse, gamepad, and joystick flight control. Use the controls you prefer to play the game. Force feedback control is also supported.
• Supports Natural Point's TrackIR 3D head control system for managing the viewpoint from the cockpit with all six degrees of movement.