One of the best spaceship strategy games is free for a limited time on Steam
Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock won't be free for much longer—just until April 9th.
The delightfully strategic turn-based strategy of Battlestar Galactica Deadlock is free on Steam for a limited time, and I'll go ahead and encourage you all to go ahead and jump in there. At about six years old BSG Deadlock is showing its age, but still has a lot to offer even those who've never watched the old sci-fi classic or its 2004 reboot.
Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock will be free for a while longer on Steam, ending on April 9th.
So go get that thing. It's quite fun, blending a 3D tactical experience with simultaneous resolution spacefleet combat: You queue up the orders, see how they play out, and do it all over again. We quite loved it at release, enjoying its emphasis on humanity's fight to survive against its overwhelming and technologically superior robotic Cylon creations.
"There wasn’t a single engagement in Deadlock that didn't put me on edge," said writer Len Hafer at the time. "Each scrap I was lucky enough to emerge from in one piece left me battered, bruised, and usually having lost expensive ships I’d spent my very limited resources building. But in precisely that way, it’s a successful adaptation of the BSG universe. The Colonial Fleet is supposed to feel like the deck is constantly stacked against them, and survival is on the line in every battle."
The nice part is that the free version you're getting now is bolstered by years of development that came alongside Deadlock's numerous DLC releases. Starting in 2018 and running through 2020, Deadlock got a lot of updates and upgrades to both interface and the general play experience.
Plus there's all that DLC. If you like the free experience, that stuff goes on sale pretty frequently. There's something like five more campaign arcs alongside a boatload of new ships and a survival mode, based on the story of the 2004 TV series, that sends you on a kind of roguelike story arc.
So, well, go get Battlestar Galactica Deadlock for free while you still can.
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Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.