The legend tells of the daring exploits and greed of the Phoenix Syndicate, which rose to power and created a galactic empire, but the old order has lost its fire and has become complacent with the affairs of the masses. It is time for a new syndicate to rise from the ashes of the old and make a clean profit along the way. Phoenix Syndicate is a game about building a network of agents on planets scattered throughout the galaxy.

Each time you play, a new galaxy is created with a random arrangement of galactic sectors. You will compete for trade routes during the game, each of which determines the systems you may want to bring into your network. The better you can fulfill these trade routes, the more profitable the deal is and the more credits you will earn.

Connecting planets to your network will require resources, which you naturally "acquire" from planets where you already have agents. During the game, you will have the opportunity to perform one basic action each turn, which will then be exhausted until you take a Deploy turn to regain all the action tokens you have spent. Actions start out simple, but by acquiring technicians, you can upgrade them.