Over 20 years after its debut, the “re-imagining” of Battlestar Galactica remains a key part of modern TV and sci-fi as a whole. After some smaller video game adaptations, including the notable turn-based strategy title Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock, developer Alt Shift and publisher Dotemu’s take on the bleak universe with Scattered Hopes finally feels like a perfect match.
After barely escaping the annihilation of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol at the hands of the Cylons, a scrappy human fleet tries to survive as it aims to reunite with humanity’s last hope — the mighty Battlestar Galactica. Anyone familiar with the show knows what comes next probably won’t be pretty, but even diehard fans will be shocked by how brutal Scattered Hopes can be.
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As it turns out, the relentlessly downbeat Battlestar Galactica universe is an ideal candidate for a game infused with failure at its core. Scattered Hopes is packed with high-intensity situations for skilled Admirals to overcome. If you’re looking for relaxed fun, though, look elsewhere.
At its core, Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes is a “game of menus”. You’ll spend most of your time clicking through many layers of crew management, resources, and dialogues. The dangerous journey is split into turns, during which you have to deal with a variety of crises, from malfunctioning tech to disagreements between the survivors to off-ship missions that might yield very valuable rewards… or even more early demises.
Normally, you can take as much time as you want weighing options and trying to predict what might happen, but you’ll have to learn from your failures to live another day … either now, or in the next run. And Cylons aren’t the only threat to your survival.
Unfortunately for humans, almost every decision comes with downsides. Scattered Hopes is a constant juggling act of resources. Focus on fuel – required to jump to new star systems – too hard and you’ll likely run out of the scrap required to fix damaged ship systems; neglect interpersonal drama and pilots will perform below the expected performance levels when the Cylons come knocking. There’s a daunting list of things that can go wrong before you even get to space warfare.
Space battles are a thing in Scattered Hopes, but they don’t play out as you’d expect. Whenever Cylon ships find you, your goal is not to destroy all of them, but to hold them back and save what you can as the fleet prepares to jump away.
Battles play out in real time, but you can pause at any time to better manage your fighter squadrons and capital ships’ cooldown-based weapons, including tactical nukes that can wipe out entire Cylon waves if timed correctly. Diehard fans of the show, however, may be disappointed by the lore-inaccurate representation of some iconic spacecraft, such as the Raptors, which are mounted with railguns and don’t have the ability to FTL jump. They just feel like random sci-fi ships beyond the visuals.
Every battle can mean the loss of ships and lives, both of which are limited resources, so combat never feels like something you’ll seek out, at least not until you’re confident enough in your pilots and the fleet. It’s a simple but oppressive approach to procedural design that Alt Shift has already toyed with for Crying Suns, their previous spaceship tactical roguelite.
Like in FTL: Faster Than Light (roguelite royalty at this point), each run will improve your chances of success as you gain better equipment, ships, and upgrades for the next attempt. And yet, even after tens of hours, I don’t feel overpowered. I just have more tools. One wrong decision, one political misstep, and it can still all come crumbling down.
In a way, you could look at Scattered Hopes like “FTL but Battlestar Galactica” and have a blast with the options and different paths to victory (and failure) it gives you. While we love a good space battle, Alt Shift’s game excels when it presents sudden events, like a rebellion inside the capital ship, or explores grudges between a generous supporting cast. There’s no “right” way out of any of those key moments, but the game will judge you and reshape what lies ahead. Victory can be obtained at any cost, with total destruction being the only “game over” condition.
It all makes for a thrilling adaptation of the TV show, capturing the unpredictability and refreshing focus on human drama and politics at the edge of an apocalypse. Facing the endless Cylon onslaught in the void of space is terrifying even in 2D battles, but many of Scattered Hopes’ gut punches happen during unexpected narrative events or tough choices that doom entire ship populations. It’s a good reminder that a video game doesn’t need to be “cinematic” to deliver riveting stories.
The early hours can be frustrating, since the “metagame” and progression take a good while to take off, and there’s also the aforementioned lore-related annoyances, but if you’re committed to overcoming that barrier, Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes lands most of its shots and proves there’s plenty of fuel left in the FTL-inspired roguelite formula.
So say we all.
Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes is available now for purchase on PC (Steam & GOG).
A review code for Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes was provided by Dotemu.
