This week, I’ve got a fascinating guest post for you from the fantastic Bunneh3000. A fellow author and mega-geek I asked him to write a post about a geek topic of his choice and he picked Battlestar Galactica games that we all want to see. Enjoy!

Battlestar Galactica as a franchise is one that has a healthy cult following spawning from both well received TV series (late ’70s – ‘80s and the 2000s). The basic story follows the space-based remnants of the human race as they flee a cybernetic race called the Cylons, with whom they’ve had a long standing war.

Both stories emote a sense of desperation, placing the human race at a disadvantage throughout the story. The drama that ensued made for great television and the action, to this day, seems to be ripe for the video game industry to take on. Unfortunately, few games have been completed and those that have are considered ‘decent’ at best.

Of those that are decent, the most recent BSG: Deadlock game probably ties the older PS2/Xbox Battlestar Galactica game. Deadlock is a mash-up of XCOM and a turn-based style Homeworld strategy game that PC gamers can sink their teeth in. With its release in 2017, developer Slitherine will assuredly support this game with more DLC and updates to keep the game fresh and exciting for a little while longer.

The old PS2/Xbox game, however, played in a kind of 3rd person style flight sim like the old Star Wars Rogue Squadron games. Outside of those two games, there’s not much to be said.

In an effort to push developers to take a chance and bring glory back to the Colonial Fleet, here are a few wish list style game types that Battlestar Galactica could flourish in!

BSG Man’s Sky

For those who have played No Man’s Sky, you either are enthralled with the immense freedom or bored with the resource gathering routine needed to improve your little ship. Here’s the Battlestar Galactica game proposal:

With the immense size of No Man Sky’s universe and the format of resource gathering, there could be an interesting Battlestar Galactica storyline that could be forged. Parts of the TV series, before the location of Earth is found, is centered around a frantic search for the resources needed to supply the fleet as it fled the Cylons.

This game could make the No Man’s Sky engine a bit less open world-y and a bit more focused. The search for resources could have Cylon away teams sprinkled in along with maybe some ‘land defense of your base’ action. Then, with No Man’s Sky’s ability to launch into space and have space battles, you could also have your grand ship combat as you race to return to the Galactica!

BSG Battlefront

While many gamers have mixed feelings about what Electronics Arts did with Star Wars Battlefront 2, the resulting game is still pretty great. The land combat is great and mixes in ‘heroes’ from the movies into the game that can quickly change the course of the battle.

Imagine being able to become any of the Cylon models or Star Buck or Athena or Kat, etc. The game then would also have the advantage of being able to play space battles well (as does the Star Wars version) with hero versions of the ships as well. Then you could possibly throw in an online persistent war (with different seasons) to mix things up with the modes and all of the sudden you have the game that Battlestar Galactica Online wishes it were!

Battlestar Pegasus Effect

Here the idea is to pair the stylings of Bioware’s legendary Mass Effect trilogy with a Battlestar Galactica skin. Mass Effect was a massive and exciting action RPG game that could arguably be considered a mashup of Star Trek and BSG to a degree. In it, you were the commander of your own ship hoping to save lives against an oncoming ridiculously overpowered threat.

The game had third person action combat as well as a bit of RPG elements where you upgraded your commander as well as your ship and shipmates. You managed your crew and even developed relationships with them. This last ‘character relationship’ aspect of Mass Effect seemingly fits right in with the sometimes exhausting character to character drama that either made it or broke it for Battlestar Galactica viewers of the later series.

With the demise of Mass Effect Andromeda, there could be a way to reimagine the series through the eyes of the Battlestar Pegasus. Since the TV show didn’t fully follow the Pegasus’ journey, a game of this style could flesh it out in a dramatic and fun way.

Battlestar Galactica Roguelike

So the gaming idea of a roguelike is to have a setup where the difficulty is high, death is permanent, and the replay value is high. By making every ‘playthrough’ procedurally different, you essentially make the game able to become a different experience everytime you play it. Games like FTL, Darkest Dungeon, and Enter The Gungeon all have interesting concepts that could work well.

FTL was a Star Trek styled game that played like a real time strategy game. The ‘board’ you played on was the layout of your ship. You either attacked other ships or you defended your ship from being boarded. All of these concepts are PERFECT for the BSG universe. You could be a commander ordering all parts of your ship to do certain actions based on the damage you receive and (to spice up the action) the damage your Colonial Fleet receives.

Darkest Dungeon was a D&D styled party based dungeon exploration game. It’s interesting concept was EVERYTHING that occurred could lead to members of your party developing traumatic mental and physical afflictions. They could become afraid of the dark, verbally abusive to party members, unwilling to obey your commands, as well as countless other things. Morale has a huge effect in this game and it could be an interesting game mechanic in a Battlestar Galactica game

Enter The Gungeon was more of an action shooter that stressed getting as far as you could in one life before dying and starting over again with only hard earned skills as what you can use again. In a BSG roguelike, this could be used to frustrate the player when pilots or crewmembers die, yet have the ability to grant bonuses if those characters were high ranking or found/developed useful tech.

Mash all of these up and I’m sure some indie developer could find a better than average gaming experience!

Battlestar Galactica VR

Now that we live in the age of VR coming into its own, there needs to be some sort of Colonial experience. Keep in mind, VR typically isn’t played for as long as other games to avoid ‘VR sickness’ so these ‘games’ will end up being less ambitious than the previous suggestions!

BSG Bridge Crew

Star Trek Bridge Crew showed that a fun multi-person bridge experience could work. Reskinning that came with the BSG universe doesn’t seem like it would be too hard. Essentially the concept is that each player is a specific role on the bridge: Captain, 2nd in Command, Communications, Weapons/Helm/Navigation, Engineering. (I’m certain others could be thought of but lets keep it simple).

The Captain gets his info and then must make rush decisions and give orders to everyone else. The others must use their hand controllers to push button and levers to do what the captain orders before something bad happens or to fix something bad. Sci-fi games of various space shows could probably fit this game model very well.

BSG Colonial Fleet Training

Here, you could do various Viper training missions as if you were in the cockpit. Thankfully, using a headset and not having to ‘walk around your room’ would work well with the VR headset anywhere. Missions could be short and sweet and the battles and sound could be quite immersive for a unique flight combat sim experience.

BSG Deadlock VR

Playing turn based strategy games can be hard given keyboard and mouse control schemes. If the control scheme for Battlestar Galactica Deadlock was more like a holographic war board where you could move your fleet with your hands (as your orders), then the speed of the whole experience could make things more enjoyable as well.

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Do you agree with these choices?

get in touch with bunneh3000 here and tell him what you think:

bunneh3000.wordpress.com
Bunneh3000.contently.com
Twitter: @bunneh3000
Bio:
BJ “Bunneh3000” is a content creator/poet/father/husband in the geekiest sense of each word. Whether streaming on Twitch, making vids on Youtube, speaking his mind on podcasts, or writing articles, he has quite the way with words!

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RELATED LINKS:

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Sci-Fi: The next generation

The King of all scifi time travel

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