Six years ago, indie developer Alt Shift developed and released the roguelike hidden gem Crying Suns. While it didn't reach a mainstream audience like some other roguelikes that year did — Children of Morta, Risk of Rain 2, and Noita among them — it did earn enough glowing praise from players to generate a cult following. And now, Alt Shift is set to deliver a follow-up and spiritual successor with the recently revealed Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes. Having now gone hands-on with the title, this is a game that both Crying Suns fans and anyone interested in tactical strategy games should be excited about.
Aside from featuring the license for one of the most iconic sci-fi properties of all time, Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes is fairly similar to Crying Suns in terms of its general gameplay loop. The push and pull between risk and reward is still at the center of its choice-based gameplay during each run, which is then put to the ultimate test in tense, turn-based tactical battles in a fight for survival against the deadly Cylons. But despite being a game still in development, Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes already feels like a strong iteration on the gameplay loop that Alt Shift debuted in Crying Suns and a chance for the developer to break through to a wider audience.
Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes' Gameplay Loop Nails the Risk/Reward Dynamic
Across a variety of media spanning nearly 50 years — from the original 1978 television series to books, comics, video games, and a 2004 reboot — the Battlestar Galactica franchise has remained one of the more iconic peices of science fiction. Its premise of a bleak future in which humanity is on the back foot and in a desperate race for survival against the deadly shapeshifting Cylons, a war which humanity brought upon itself with scientific hubris, remains as presicent today as it was in the late 1970s. One of the first things that stands out about Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes is how well Alt Shift has tapped into the spirit of the franchise, honoring what came before while also crafting unique and original stories that feel right at home in that universe.
That congruency between narrative and gameplay shines through in how well Scattered Hopes balances the dynamic between risk and reward in each of its many gameplay systems. Players will begin each run in Scattered Hopes by choosing from one of a few premade fleets, each of which is made up of a main battle cruiser and the civilian ships that it's escorting. Within each sector, players will need to manage a limited pool of resources; fuel for moving to investigate Points of Interest that yield other resources like Scrap and Supplies, or action points from their VIPs to resolve crises and situations that arise within the fleet's different ships and among their personnel. Every choice you make has a consequence, with each inch gained in one area potentially sealing you off from valuable resources or situation management down the line.
Tying it all together is the kind of strong writing and character development that you would expect from a title with the Battlestar Galactica license, and it's in line with what players of Crying Suns know and expect of developer Alt Shift. Each choice that players make during a run is fraught with consequence, making you stop and consider the potential ramifications of siding with one faction over another, choosing to court-martial or jail an accused saboteur, or even having to forego giving shelter and resources to the civilian ships in your fleet to avoid putting the whole group at risk. And that's without even factoring in the litany of choices players will have to make both before and during Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes' excellent combat.
Scattered Hopes' Tactical Turn-Based Battles Are Tense and Satisfyingly Quick
Each run of Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes begins in a sector, and each action that the players commit to ticks away at a doomsday clock heralding the arrival of the Cylons. Once the Cylons show up, it's all hands on deck to fend them off in hopes of surviving long enough to make the faster-than-light jump to the next sector. Players have to deploy their flet of ships, assign some of their VIPs to them to take advantage of different perks and bonuses they provide to combat, and then manually maneuver them around the vacuum of space to strategically take out incominc threats while protecting both the civilian ships and the main battle cruiser.
In practice, this plays out like a mix between turn-based tactics, real-time strategy, and tower defense, and it's incredibly satisfying to pull off. Battles utilize the real-time with pause framework, allowing you to address different crises as they arise and shift priorities mid-combat. Each of the ships in the battle cruiser's hangar has a different utility, with some being better suited to flying and meeting Cylon ships where they jump in while others are best used to guard both the civilian ships and the main battle cruiser. And, of course, the battle cruiser is far from defenseless, able to launch its own homing missiles and, if you're lucky during the exploration phase, nukes that can clear out entire squadrons of Cylons. Before you know it, the FTL spooling will complete, prompting a mad dash to regroup, escape, and live to fight another day.
Even in its Early State, Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes Shows Plenty of Promise
Scattered Hopes might not have a set release date yet, but it's already shaping up to be a strong entry into the ever-growing roguelike genre. Progression, both in terms of what players gain within a run and the larger meta-progression, already has a clear trajectory that promises a steady power curve and repeated satisfying runs as players get stronger and more suited to commanding their fleet from one attempt to the next. VIPs under the player's control (the members of your crew who handle the moment-to-moment actions of resolving situations or exploring points of interest in each sector) can level up, an on-board research & development lab grants bonuses to your battle cruiser, and the end of each run allows players to choose from a set of permanent bonuses that improve survivability in subsequent playthroughs.
The spirit of Crying Suns is strong within Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes, but it's also different enough to stand out on its own as a game that should excite science fiction fans, turn-based tactics fans, roguelike fans, or any intersectionality between the three. Most importantly, it's a title that's already hard to put down, successfully triggering that "just one more run" rush that the best roguelikes do, and making getting to play the eventual full version of the game an exciting prospect.
Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes is currently in development for PC. The Best War Games was provided a PC code for this preview.