Hey everyone!
My name is Nicolas de Ferran, I’ve been working as a composer for the past twelve years, and I had the pleasure of writing the original music for Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes.
I’m perhaps best known for the music of the indie game They Are Billions, but I’ve worked on many games across console, PC, and mobile. I have also worked as a music editor on titles such as Vampyr, A Plague Tale: Innocence, Greedfall, and The Technomancer, among others.
As a long-time fan of science fiction and fantasy, Battlestar Galactica has always held a cult status for me. So when Alt Shift and Dotemu reached out about composing the music for the game, it was a real joy and an exciting opportunity.
We spent several weeks discussing ideas and exploring different directions before settling on a musical approach that everyone felt excited about. Once we found that shared vision, I was officially brought onto the project.
From the beginning, Frédéric Lopez (Alt Shift CEO and Art Director on Scattered Hopes) and I agreed that we didn’t want to simply imitate the music of the series. Instead, we wanted to create our own take on the musical world of Battlestar Galactica. As a composer, I wasn’t interested in copying Bear McCreary’s work, so we tried to move in a different direction while still respecting the legacy of the TV show.
One element I did keep from the original series was the blend of acoustic instruments and electronic textures. However, I approached it in a less obvious way, by keeping mostly the percussion as the only acoustic element. The series also has a strong ethnic character in its music, which is something I intentionally tried to move away from for this score.
The process was very collaborative with the whole development team to make sure the music supported the game both narratively and mechanically. It involved a lot of discussions, experimentation, and trial and error. We talked extensively about the gameplay features, what was important in each situation, and what we wanted the player to feel at specific moments.
With game music, one of the key aspects is helping players understand what’s happening on screen. The music is part of the feedback they receive, guiding their perception of the situation. Once that clarity is in place, the emotional layer can truly emerge.
As with any game score, the biggest challenge is designing the music so that it properly supports the gameplay and gives the right feedback.
I spent a lot of time playing early builds of the game to better understand what players would actually experience. Experiencing the game firsthand is essential as a composer, because it helps you understand what the player is going through and what the music needs to do in order to make that experience feel unique and meaningful.
When I was working on the main theme (the melody players hear throughout the whole adventure), I originally performed it with a lead synth sound that I had designed specifically for it. But after some time we realized it wasn’t quite working. So I called my friend Georges Barré, an incredible cellist from the Opéra de Paris, and invited him to my studio. He spent a full day recording the theme and several variations of it. His playing is so beautiful that it immediately elevated the entire soundtrack.
It was really fun to mix this cello with a bunch of gritty synth sounds I created just for this project. I used a Prophet Rev2 as my main synth, which is an amazing analog machine with a really deep and complex modulation matrix that really allowed me to get super creative – a good example of this can be heard in the boss battle track (“By Your Command” in the soundtrack album), which opens with these huge and weird distorted sounds.
I was really chasing something that felt almost Cylon in nature: mechanical, unpredictable, and slightly alive, contrasting with the human warmth of the cello.
Overall, this project was an absolute joy to work on.
Thank you to all the players! I hope you enjoy your time in Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes.
So say we all.