5 Best Games For Fans Of Battlestar Galactica

Published Oct 24, 2026, 10:00 AM EDT

Sharmila is an engineer-turned-gaming hardware journalist and freelance contributor at ScreenRant who has been covering the gaming and tech industry since 2021. While she first built her expertise writing about video games, she has since pivoted towards gaming hardware, with a focus on PC components, peripherals, handhelds, and performance-driven tech. When she’s not testing gear or writing about the latest hardware trends, she can usually be found diving into competitive shooters or keeping up with the evolving esports scene.

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Few sci-fi shows make survival feel as difficult as the Battlestar Galactica franchise. With the Cylons hunting humanity to extinction, the crew of the Galactica has to deal with dwindling supplies, political disputes, and the constant fear that someone on board might be hiding a dangerous secret. Escaping one disaster isn’t enough, as another is usually waiting around the corner.

If you miss Battlestar Galactica’s mix of tense space battles, difficult decisions, and people trying to hold things together while everything falls apart—now that the show stands canceled—there are plenty of video games that can offer you the same set of experiences on your PC or console. Whether you want to command a battered spaceship running low on fuel and ammunition, or lead humanity's fight against a superior enemy, navigate political conflicts, or make choices that could cost innocent lives, there’s one for every fan version of you.

The Battlestar Galactica-like games I’ve picked for this list don’t feature Cylons or a Colonial Fleet, which were a major part of what made the show so compelling, but they have their own hooks to keep you engaged while offering you nostalgia with undeniably similar elements. These games create their own crises, force you to live with the consequences of your decisions, and remind you that survival often comes at a price.

FTL: Faster Than Light

If you enjoy the tension in Battlestar Galactica, where every decision can mean the difference between survival and losing another ship, FTL: Faster Than Light should be right up your alley. This game has you command a small spaceship carrying important information while a Rebel fleet chases you across the galaxy. Your job is to reach your destination before the enemy catches up, and getting there is rarely simple.

Like Commander Adama, you have to make tough calls with limited resources. Should you send your crew to repair a damaged engine or keep them at their stations during a fight? Do you spend your remaining scrap on better weapons or save it for repairs later? Even a routine encounter can turn into a disaster if you make the wrong choice.

The similarities to Battlestar Galactica go beyond just space combat. Your crew members have different roles, your ship can suffer crippling damage, and every loss makes the journey harder. There is no guarantee that everyone will make it to the end. Unlike the show, FTL uses randomly generated journeys, so each run brings different encounters and problems. It doesn’t have Battlestar Galactica’s political drama or hidden Cylon identities, but it captures the fear of being hunted while trying to keep a fragile crew alive really well.

The Expanse: A Telltale Series

One of the most intriguing features of Battlestar Galactica is that the biggest threats don’t always come from the enemy. Internal arguments over leadership, political rivalries, and decisions made under pressure can be just as dangerous as a Cylon attack. The Expanse: A Telltale Series understands that side of Battlestar Galactica really well, offering you an excellent simulation of the political drama that Faster Than Light misses. Interestingly, The Expanse is a popular sci-fi TV show of its own, and we have a separate set of game recommendations for it too.

In The Expanse, you play as Camina Drummer, an officer aboard a scavenging ship exploring the dangerous reaches of space. As the crew searches abandoned ships and deals with hostile encounters, you must decide whom to trust and how far you’re willing to go to protect your people. Your choices affect relationships and can have serious consequences for the crew.

This sense of responsibility should feel familiar to anyone who has watched Adama struggle to keep the Colonial Fleet together. Both stories feature people living in confined spaces, dealing with competing interests, and making decisions without knowing what will happen next. There’s also a shared interest in the human cost of life in space. Besides simply fighting enemies, these characters deal with a lot of emotions, including loyalty, resentment, fear, and personal ambition.

What’s different from Battlestar Galatica is that The Expanse focuses on exploration and dialogue rather than commanding a fleet through large-scale battles. If the political tensions and character conflicts were your favorite parts of the show, you should definitely give The Expanse a try.

In Battlestar Galactica, humanity is badly outmatched by an enemy with superior technology, and survival depends on fighting smart rather than fighting fair. XCOM 2 puts you in a similar position, except the aliens have already conquered Earth and you have to get rid of them.

The plot is all about you leading a resistance movement that’s trying to overthrow the alien-controlled government. Between missions, you manage your mobile headquarters, research enemy technology, recruit soldiers, and decide how to spend your limited supplies. On the battlefield, you command a squad of soldiers through turn-based tactical missions where a single mistake can get someone killed. And here’s where the game really connects with Battlestar Galactica.

Every soldier you command has a name, a role, and skills you’ve invested time in developing. Losing an experienced fighter from your team hurts because you know how much work went into keeping them alive. The same way Battlestar Galactica made every death aboard the fleet feel like a real setback rather than just another casualty. Both the show and game revolve around humanity resisting a technologically superior enemy while trying to preserve what remains of civilization. You must take risks, make sacrifices, and sometimes accept losses to keep the larger fight going.

There’s less emphasis on political drama and personal suspicion in XCOM 2, but the constant pressure of fighting a seemingly unbeatable opponent makes it a great fit for Battlestar Galactica fans.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition

If you enjoyed the greater story behind Battlestar Galactica, especially the mystery surrounding humanity’s enemies and the fight to unite people against a common threat, Mass Effect Legendary Edition deserves a place on your list.

This collection includes all three games in the original Mass Effect trilogy. You play as Commander Shepard, a military officer who discovers that an ancient machine race called the Reapers poses an existential threat to the galaxy. Besides dealing with the Reapers in battles, you must build alliances, settle disputes between rival species, and convince people to work together before it’s too late.

This struggle has plenty in common with Adama’s efforts to keep the Colonial Fleet united. In both stories, survival depends on people who don’t necessarily trust one another but find a reason to cooperate anyway. Political arguments, personal loyalties, and disagreements over the right course of action can easily complicate things in the battle against a much larger enemy. At the same time, you also share a close relationship with your crew, so there’s an element of emotion.

Besides all this, Mass Effect gives you a huge galaxy to explore, with a large number of alien civilizations to come across and opportunities for combat. If you love the mix of military science fiction, character drama, and an approaching apocalypse in Battlestar Galactica, Shepard’s journey in Mass Effect is well worth experiencing.

Homeworld Remastered Collection

The journey of the Colonial Fleet is one of the defining parts of Battlestar Galactica, where the survivors must travel through hostile space in search of a place where they can start again. And Homeworld tells a story with a strikingly similar premise.

The collection includes remastered versions of the original Homeworld and Homeworld 2. In the first game, you command the Kushan people after they discover the truth about their origins and set out across the galaxy to reach their ancestral homeworld, Hiigara. In Homeworld 2, the story continues with the Hiigarans facing a new threat to their civilization, as fleet commander Karan S’jet leads the struggle against the powerful Vaygr and their leader, Makaan. In both games, your mothership and the fleet it carries represent the survival of an entire people, making their protection central to your mission.

As a real-time strategy game (and one of the best in its genre), Homeworld lets you build ships, gather resources, research technology, and direct fleets during battles in three-dimensional space. Ships that survive one mission can remain part of your force in the next, making careful planning and protecting your fleet especially important.

Both Battlestar Galactica and Homeworld follow displaced people whose survival depends on a vulnerable fleet traveling through dangerous territory. Every battle carries consequences, because replacing lost ships and protecting the people who depend on them isn't always easy.

Homeworld focuses more on fleet tactics than interpersonal drama, and it doesn't offer Battlestar Galactica-style hidden traitors. Still, its story of loss, survival, and the search for a new home makes it an excellent choice for fans.

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