Like the Trackmania's before it, United features three main modes of play
- Race Puzzle and Platform. These three modes are basically the same as the
previous titles - Race is for timed races either against preset Bronze,
Silver and Gold times or other players online, Puzzle is also timed but you
have to build the track before racing with a pre-determined amount of blocks,
and Platform is about staying on a usually airborne track from start to finish
with as few resets as possible. All three offer unique gameplay and really
show off the fun and addictive nature of the Trackmania formula.

To showcase these three modes, United again has a system much like all the
other Trackmania titles - you choose which of the three modes you want to
play, and then you have a choice of five difficulty settings - "Start",
"Easy", "Normal", "Hard" and "Extreme". Each of these modes have a selection
of tracks to choose from (except Extreme which has one track) and naturally,
the harder the difficulty, the harder and usually larger/longer the tracks.
In Race mode specifically, you also have the option of choosing which
environment you want to race in, such as "Stadium", "Desert", "Coast" and
"Rally" to name a few, which determines the tracks and car used. These
environments are unlocked one by one when completing the single player Race
mode, and they really offer distinct differences from one to another, mainly
because cars actually feel very different from one to another now in United.
However, with that said, the actual racing/driving gameplay in United is
basically the same as it has always been - which means it is very fast, very
arcadey, and very fun.