Cult license from the 70s, it was with the TV series of the 2000s that Battlestar Galactica was a second youth, but adaptations in video games are counted on the fingers of your two hands. To see equipped to work with the Montpellier studio Alt Shift on Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes was a little surprise. The first advantage of this upcoming game is that even a person having no knowledge of the license like me quickly understands the issues. It will be for the player to lead his small fleet of vessels to join Captain Adama, the Battlestar Galactica and what remains of humanity after the surprise attack of the cylons having almost eradicated the human race.
The game will consist in constantly fleeing the cylons that track us and preparing our “FTL Jump” (Supralumique Speed) to sow our pursuers. Here, there is no question of victory, but only of survival and Scattered Hopes We feel it very well. If you are familiar with FTL: Faster Than Light, you find a lot of concordant elements here without going on a stupid and nasty copy. Since the game includes a Roguelite dimension, a certain number of elements will be random, but a part is starting with a fleet, which will consist of a flagship accompanied by two small satellite vessels.
We will have three lieutenants with random powers that we can use to maximize actions, defuse crises and many other things more easily. These are masterpieces with an experience bar that is their own, and these lieutenants will be able to perform an action by cycle – the name given to the preparation for the new attack of the cylons until we will have to go to the next sector. It is therefore necessary to juggle between amassing of resources and improvement of our vessels, from their armaments to their defensive system, without forgetting their yields.
Add to that crises and factions to satisfy, between workers, soldiers and others, scientific research to unlock additional bonuses and we end up with a lot of problems to manage in a limited time. Especially since as in the series, our ranks will be able to understand infiltrated cylons that will have to be unmasked. A mechanics that we did not have the opportunity to see, but which was explained by members of the studio present at the Preview.
The game puts us in front of Cornelian choices at the Frostpunk and constantly reminds us of the urgency of the situation. When the countdown reaches zero, it’s time for combat and Scattered Hopes turns into a strategy game in real time, but in which we will massively use the tactical break. Again, the goal is not to defeat the enemy, but to resist attacks long enough before you can make the FTL jump. Everything is a question of placement and timing, but also of the preparation brought to our fleet, our hunters and their armaments, and we can even assign our lieutenants in key places.
It is relatively difficult as the fighting is deliberately unbalanced, and the placement of our hunters and the use of the good timing of the missiles of our flagship are vital. We quickly learn to keep an attentive eye on the countdown so as not to spend a second more in the area, since it will be necessary to think of bringing his hunters back to his flagship before his jump, under pain that the latter are lost. Before each jump, we can have an overview of the elements that will be accessible in the next sector (defined randomly, of course) to make a complicated new choice.
If the game promises to be tough, we can obviously count on a meta progression like any self -respecting roguelite. In Scattered Hopesit will be a special currency that we will unlock by succeeding certain objectives at stake and which will allow us to start our next part with more resources or certain permanent advantages once unlocked.