Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes Is The Most Fun I’ve Had with a Roguelike Since Hades 2 (Review)

As one of the longest-running and most beloved sci-fi IPs out there, Battlestar Galactica has had its fair share of video game adaptations. From mobile games to flight simulators and MMOs, there’s a storied history of good, bad, and just okay Battlestar Galactica games. And in 2026, fans are being treated to a new rendition in Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes. Developed by Alt Shift and published by Dotemu, Scattered Hopes releases for PC today, May 11th. I had a chance to check it out early for review.

Scattered Hopes combines real-time strategy and roguelike elements, with a dash of visual novel storytelling. The game challenges players to escape the Cylons and reunite with the Battlestar Galactica in order to survive. Along the way, you’re faced with difficult choices between and during battle, and your decisions can have devastating consequences. With an engaging story steeped in Battlestar Galactica lore and an addictively satisfying gameplay loop, Scattered Hopes kept me coming back for more in the best way.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Pros	Cons
Satisfying roguelike progression	Some scenarios can start to feel repetitive over time
Great variety of strategic options for each run	Audio/sound feels a bit lacking at times
Difficulty settings help you adapt the challenges to suit your playstyle
Engaging, choices-driven storyline steeped in Battlestar Galactica lore

Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes Delivers on Story and Strategy

When I first booted up Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes, I was a bit taken aback by its lack of voice acting. For a game billed as a story-rich tactics game, I expected at least the occasional spoken line to bring the characters to life. But despite being overall a fairly quiet game, Scattered Hopes manages to draw you into its story.

With an overall premise that’s roughly the same each run, your choices impact what happens to your fleet and your crew. The story unfolds as you make tough calls about resources and manage crises between battles with the Cylons. Along with the overarching dynamics of your fleet, each key crew member has their own story to tell. Though some situations do repeat in subsequent runs thanks to random chance, each attempt to survive the Cylon onslaught feels like its own unique story. The replayability and sense of choices-matter narrative here is impressive and kept me coming back for more.

Your choices shape the story out of combat, but they also help determine your odds of survival. How you spend resources can impact the strength and stability of your fleet as you enter RTS battles with the Cylons. Outside of battle, you have to decide whether to repair ships, solve crises, or invest in your fleet and squadron. Those choices help influence how ready you are to take on the next Cylon onslaught, with sometimes devastating consequences.

During each battle, you’ve got plenty of options for how to survive. You’ll choose which squadrons to deploy, and with which crew members. In real-time, you command the squadrons, deciding where they go and whether to play offense or defense to survive until you’re ready for your next jump. Along with a variety of squadron units and crew members to choose from, leveling up your battle ships means picking which abilities to acquire. This makes for a satisfying mix of potential strategies to take into battle. The game also offers a few different starting fleet compositions to select at the start of your run, giving you more strategic options to play around with. Coupled with a good mix of story possibilities, this flexibility in strategy keeps things feeling fresh in Scattered Hopes.

Scattered Hopes Nails Its Roguelike Progression

Given the growing popularity of roguelikes, I’ve played my fair share of these games over the years. And the inherent repetition of the genre means that devs need to strike a good balance to keep players from getting bored or frustrated. You need progression within the run, along with a meta progression mechanic to improve over time. And I’m happy to report that Scattered Hopes absolutely nailed it.

Each run offers opportunities to use your resources to strengthen your crew members and squadrons. Your civilian and primary ships can level up, as well. This gives each run a sense of progression over time. The longer you survive the Cylon onslaughts, the more resources you have at your disposal to improve your odds of making it to the Battlestar Galactica. Should you fall to the Cylon forces, however, all of these improvements die with your fleet. That’s where the meta progression comes in.

Between runs, you have the opportunity to spend the Fate you earn from surviving as long as you manage to. This resource lets you buy more permanent upgrades that will help you go into the next run with a slight advantage. You can increase your starting resources or get a free respawn for a destroyed squadron. So, the more you fail, the stronger you get going into the next attempt. This ensures that you don’t feel stagnant between runs, but rather get rewarded for your efforts with the tools to get a bit further next time.

These boosts are well-balanced, giving you a slight edge without making things feel too easy at any point. The same goes for the temporary improvements you earn during an individual run. This makes for an overall satisfying sense of progression that feels rewarding, but never to the point that it removes the challenge and strategy altogether.

In all, Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes is just plain fun. It’s got good, varied strategy elements and a solid roguelike progression loop. Add in the sci-fi classic goodness that is the Battlestar Galactica universe, and you’re left with a game that is well worth sinking many hours into. And trust me, you’ll want to keep coming back for more.

Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes releases on May 11th for PC. It costs $24.99, with an introductory discount of 20% off through May 18th. ComicBook was provided with a PC copy of Scattered Hopes for the purpose of this review.

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