Starflight takes place in the year 4620. Mankind had been traveling through space since the year 2100 or so, which there had been various events that had occurred during that time in regards to wars, Earth being abandoned/humans relocating and meeting various spacefaring races, etc.

Presently there is a crisis in regards to solar flares occurring in the galaxy that mankind (and several alien species) currently reside in, so it is up to the player to travel throughout this galaxy, referring hospitable new planets in case of possible future relocation for Interstel (the spacefaring agency that the player is a member of), making money to upgrade their ship with, and gathering information from alien species in hopes of solving the solar flares mystery before all is lost.

The player only has one life, so it is imperative to save the game often, although games can go on for months, possibly even years of just exploring the galaxy and making notes of everything.

The game was first created for the PC, then later ported to the Sega Genesis, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and Macintosh.