In Omen: Fires in the East, players compete to control Persian and Phoenician cities in order to rule over the land. The game introduces new mechanisms and new unit types, including sphinxes and merchants.

Omen: Fires in the East is a stand-alone expansion in the Omen line and is a two-player card game that features two distinct game modes: standard and draft. The standard game has players drawing cards from a collective deck, and accessing cards from a collective discard pile. The draft game allows players access to their favorite units, with each player drafting his own deck to play the game with.

Players take turns placing units into one of three cities on the table. When one player has three or more units in a single city at the start of their turn, or there is a total of five units in any city, a battle is fought. The side with the most power wins the city and claims a reward. Play continues until all rewards from all but one city have been completely claimed. Points are scored for the rewards claimed, and the player with the highest score wins.