Players are introduced to basic game concepts through a brief tutorial and are then guided through Gangs of Boomtown's story via a series of quests. These tasks will lead the player from location to location in the Boomtown world in order to fight enemies, collect items and make a name for themselves.

Upon returning to Boomtown, the player is able to clear the burned-out debris of the original settlement, construct buildings, plant crops and make use of various special buildings in order to upgrade their weapons or increase their population limit. All actions in this "PvE" part of the game cost energy to perform — this replenishes over time and at every level up. Constructing certain buildings requires specific resources which can be acquired by expending hard currency or asking friends, and the construction of some special buildings is also friend-gated — though as usual, this may also be bypassed with hard currency.

Conversely, the player character can die in a rather gory animated sequence when battling other online cowboys and cowgirls, but simply gets back up again a moment later as if nothing happened. For all Gangs of Boomtown's attempts to provide a fast-paced Old West narrative with a sense of urgency, these aspects make it feel like one might as well be playing a non-violent farming or citybuilding game.