PC, Xbox, PS4 •
Listen up, nuggets. You should all be familiar with Black Lab Games‘ dark horse tactical gem, Battlestar Galactica Deadlock. Quite possibly the best licensed game this side of, heck, Dark Forces. A terrific tactical starship game based on the paradigm-shifting show of the 2000s, one that I’d put in my top five — count ’em, five — games of all time. Well, there’s a new expansion coming out very soon, and it sounds all manner of tasty.
The base game was a good start, but some rightly felt it was lacking a little oomph in a few places. Black Lab Games set to expanding where needed, and so far, they’ve done a bang-up job with each successive DLC pack, alongside gratis updates and overhauls. Deadlock has gone from being merely very good to top-shelf, particularly with the recent addition of sub-campaign, The Broken Alliance.
New expansion Anabasis looks set to sate the appetites of punters wanting a taste of the reboot’s Second Cylon War. While it doesn’t give us Bill Adama and friends, Anabasis does tell its own exodus story against the backdrop of the original conflict.
Set condition one throughout the ship, inbound copy-paste barrage.
Anabasis is the most significant expansion for Battlestar Galactica Deadlock to date, completely revolutionising the game: it introduces a new game mode, Operation Anabasis, and also adds 11 new skirmish maps, 4 new munition types and 12 new resource missions!
New survival mode
In the new survival mode called Operation Anabasis, you will be in command of a single fleet, comprising of both military and civilian ships. Your task is to flee and survive, and lead your soldiers and colonists back to Caprica. You will be hunted relentlessly. Jump after jump, you will find no reprieve.
Your resources are limited, but you may be afforded the option to repair your ships and salvage resources after every jump. Each playthrough will be unique and completely randomised: you can choose the location of your next jump, and every location will have a different set of potential bonuses and penalties. You can customise your fleet, but remember: to flee is to survive, and time is against you. The Cylons will keep coming. Can you make it back home? How many will you save?
New Skirmish Maps
Anabasis adds eleven new maps, available in single player or multiplayer skirmishes as well as in the new Operation Anabasis mode!
They are incredibly thematic and add great variety to the existing maps set. You can now fight in orbit of Caprica, scrambling with Cylon ships above the upper atmosphere of the planet. Face multiple clusters of dangerous neutral minefields in the new Vallum map, or hide in the gas nebula of the Niflheimr map. These are just three examples of the new maps: each of them has a unique theme, will provide new tactical situations and introduce new objects around which you’ll need to tailor your strategy.
New munition types
New munition types that can be used in any game mode, for greatly increased tactical variety! Now Colonial and Cylon admirals will have more tools than ever at their disposal.
Debris mine – The debris mine is a directional remote frag mine, a new style of area control tool directed at controlling the airspace of squadrons. The munition deploys like a mine, however, once it reaches its destination, it automatically detonates. It is usable by Colonials.
Comet PCM – The Comet PCM is an unguided ballistic projectile for Cylons, consisting of a modified jamming suite and a homing device. The Comet is launched at an enemy ship and attempts to subvert any guided missiles whose path it crosses. It reprograms the guided munitions to follow the Comet, hopefully into the enemy ship. The name comes from the visuals of the Comet projectile followed by its tail of converted missiles.
EMP Generator – EMP generators are a method of discharging an electromagnetic pulse under “ideal” situations, damaging nearby Cylon capitals while minimising the damage to your own systems. This is usable by Colonials only. When used, instead of launching a missile from a missile tube, the launching ship instead winds up its generator for a period of 3 seconds, after which an EMP pulse is released, centred on the launching ship.
Scrambler – The Scrambler is a defensive sentry munition that projects an ECM field, scrambling the enemy’s DRADIS and target locks. Unlike other mines, the Scrambler will trigger if any unit – friendly or hostile – crosses the detection border. When triggered, the Scrambler deploys an ECM field of a 400U radius. All friendly units within the ECM field have their target lock removed, effectively making them hidden against guided munition attacks. Additionally, any hostile units inside of the ECM field are automatically identified and have the Maximum Strength of their Tech Bay reduced. This drastically hinders their DRADIS capability and makes them susceptible to hacking attacks or early guided munition launches.
New resource missions
Twelve new resource missions are now available in the campaign. This increases the single-player campaign’s variety immensely, making you face plenty of new situations!
The new mission types are Interference, Station Purge, Hub Assault, Rescue Trade Minister, Diplomatic Relations, War Tourism, Tactical Advantage, Coordinated Strike, President’s Aide, Dropbox, Demolition Crew and Trojan. Each one of these presents a fresh new tactical goal you will need to reach, from reaching intel data in satellite dropboxes before the Cylons beat you to it (Dropbox) to seeding an experimental virus into a Cylon command ship (Trojan).
Frak me. Mission variety in the campaign is a big plus, considering it often boiled down to either main progression sorties, expansion missions or blasting cylon raiders out of colonial space to keep the locals happy. The above twelve are a welcomed injection.
Fighters and strike craft were mused upon as getting a much-needed overhaul, and I’m guessing that’ll be rolled out at the same time as the DLC. Fighters were finicky elements, and often needed a lot of coddling to perform as required. Having them on their A-game is going to totally change fleet defense, and can only enrich encounters.
I could go on and on about Deadlock, but I’ll leave it here. Suffice to say, it’s terrific to keep receiving these gamechanger expansions, and I’ll keep buying them if the developers keep making them. So say we all.
Anabasis DLC hits Steam, PS4 and Xbox One on October 18.
- Battlestar Galactica Deadlock for PC via Steam, $40
- Battlestar Galactica Deadlock for PS4, $40
- Battlestar Galactica Deadlock for Xbox, $30
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