The overworld of Eternam is represented as a three-dimensional subgame, which resembles a first-person shooter. The islands Eternam are filled with flying reptiles, which attack the player. The player can defend themselves by shooting the reptiles, by pressing the space bar. The 3D engine was developed by Frederic Raynal, who is better known for his work on the Alone in the Dark and Little Big Adventure series. Within towns and buildings, the game changes into a two-dimensional adventure game. The game is hampered by the fact that while it is structured as a point-and-click adventure, it lacks mouse support, requiring icons describing possible actions to be activated by keyboard commands. All interesting items in a room are automatically revealed by a vector line combining the player character with the item in question, allowing them to be selected. Later the same engine was used in Shadow of the Comet, but with mouse support added, to remove this limitation
Each game uses different controls, most DOS games use the keyboard arrows. Some will use the mouse , "Alt" ,"Enter" and "Space bar".