Players in Emergency 2: The Ultimate Fight for Life are tasked with coordinating immediate response teams to situations involving fire, rescue, hostage recovery, and disasters (manmade and natural) by managing aspects such as crowd and road control, injuries, negotiations, and more. As in real life, efficiently controlling the scene is mandatory to success and, in the game, this requires completing every task assigned during the mission brief. As missions advance, an evolving system of hints and tips becomes available for players having difficulty in meeting the necessary goals.
During the 25 real-time strategy missions, players will encounter scenarios with varying conditions such as nighttime, bad weather, indoor and outdoor environments, and a multitude of emergency vehicles and teams. Missions begin with a short video showcasing the problem, followed by a mission briefing in the central command center where the entire operation is controlled. After selecting the correct team for the job at hand, players will head to the scene itself and take control of vehicles, crews, and strategy of on-location actions such as entering buildings, maintaining order, commanding a sniper unit, and securing the situation.
Specific mission goals include actions like thwarting a terrorist bio-threat, avoiding nuclear disaster, rescuing the president, saving victims of a train wreck, squelching a military coup, going on a nuclear sub S&R deployment, fighting raging fires, quelling a prison riot and controlling helicopters, fire engines, patrol cars, and more.