Legacy of the Stars is a space empire-building game in which you take control of one of eight factions racing to rebuild human civilization after a devastating galactic civil war. Your goal is to be the faction whose legacy will shape humanity's future by collecting Legacy Cards representing your accomplishments.
The core mechanic involves playing action cards from your hand to gather the game's three resource types, spend those resources on ships, outposts, cities, and technology, and move your ships to engage in combat or conquest.
There are six different kinds of Legacy Card: Expansion (having outposts on lots of planets), Empire (having lots of cities), Enlightenment (researching high-level technology), Extermination (destroying cities and outposts during conquest), Exploration (devoting resources to the renovation of derelict warp gates), and the Exalted (destroying "Exalted Guardians", which are the ancient autonomous war machines that still protect a few special planets).
The first player to collect 8 Legacy Cards is the winner. Players track their progress on the Legacy Track, which triggers events whenever the first player reaches each new legacy total.
—description from the designer