While this sounds straight forward, Star Wolves mixes this up with changing - and sometimes branching - mission objectives, along with some basic moral choices and a simple factional system. Three powerful and competing corporations, along with the Emperor's forces, pirates, Berserks and more, populate the Star Wolves universe and undertaking missions for one group can ultimately have consequences with another. For example, at one stage I accepted a mission from a pirate group to steal a prototype fighter ship from InoCo - a corporation I had previously avoided. Just as I met the pirates at the specified location, a distress signal came in from a research base under heavy attack by the same pirate group. Through dialogue with the lead pirate, I could ignore the distress call and continue to work with the pirates to earn their cash or help the research station - putting me in conflict with the pirates but opening up the possibility of getting the prototype ship for myself.

While the game follows an overall story arc, both the missions players choose to undertake and the decisions made during play have some impact on which factions will offer missions in the future, as well as when you will encounter new team members and some new technologies. This certainly makes Star Wolves less linear than most strategy games but in practice, there are only a couple of major branching points and the story hits the same major points regardless. Occasionally stations have simple side-quest, making it worth exploring the entire system - fortunately the game speed can be increased to make the travel less tedious.

It's a pity the story and dialogue are undermined by a dreadful translation and diabolical voice acting. It's hard to know whether the original Russian dialogue reached any great heights but the English translation is completely unnatural. Perhaps the script is word for word but it lacks the flow and nuance of a native speaker - I'll never forget lines like "Are you really wolves? HAR HAR HAR". Still, the storyline remains adequate to maintain interest while other elements shine.​