Terminator: Resistance Is Rough Around the Edges but Appeals to Franchise Fans

Reef Entertainment

I’m going to be honest with you: I did not have high hopes for Terminator: Resistance. It’s no secret the Terminator franchise has struggled to put out anything passable since Terminator 2, save for The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Couple that track record with developer Teyon, whose claim to fame is the thoroughly awful on-rails shooter Rambo: The Video Game, and you’ve got a seemingly guaranteed recipe for disaster.

While Tim Miller and James Cameron continue to torpedo the franchise with Terminator: Dark Fate, Teyon has put out a surprisingly passable Terminator video game. Hollywood seems content to see how many times Terminator 3 can be rebooted before Arnold finally keels over. Teyon’s game, however, takes advantage of freeing itself from the confines of the movies and into the War Against the Machines. Let’s be honest: the glimpses of the future war in the first two movies were pretty badass.

Terminator: Resistance takes place in 2028 (simultaneously a prequel and sequel to the second film, if you want to get all causality loop about it) after the nuclear fire of Judgment Day in and around the hellscape of Pasadena, California. The seemingly unstoppable front of Skynet’s killer robots, dubbed the Annihilation Line, sweeps ever forward. You play as Jacob Rivers, a member of the Resistance whose division has been, well, annihilated, and falls in with a group of scavengers on his way to link up with another division of Resistance soldiers.

Let’s be clear: Terminator: Resistance is a budget game; there aren’t many original concepts here. The lockpicking is straight out of Elder Scrolls. The hacking minigame is literally Frogger with a techno paint job. There are some RPG elements, with skill trees, loyalty levels, and side quests. The supporting cast is marred by stilted voice actors but has some interesting stories, especially the older characters telling the stories of the immediate aftermath of Judgement Day. The actual missions they send you on are less than stellar, often going to a marked circle on the map and searching for an item. Each map, however, is open and allows for objectives to be completed as desired. The shooting also feels a bit dated, like something from a generation or two ago, but it’s still enjoyable. Sounds are a high point—the plasma weapons sound just like the movies, and the soundtrack is full of synthesizers and soulful electric guitars straight out of the 1980s.

The game has an issue of being too easy. It doesn’t throw actual terminators at you until a few hours in, up until then fighting Skynet drones. The game then gives you plasma weapons (in the 40-watt range, of course) and that’s when things get easy; then combat gets trivial with the introduction of the second-generation plasma weapons thanks to an easily exploitable upgrade system. I played one difficulty level below the hardest and even on the final mission was wiping the floor with enemies. The game stresses stealth in many sections, but it was often easier to terminate some terminators. These are unstoppable killbots we’re talking about; they should act like it. The game took me a bit under eight hours to complete, and that’s with every side quest. The story is pretty Terminator-y and offers a few variations on the ending for some replayability if you’re so inclined. One major plot beat I guessed hours before it was revealed, mainly due to how the developers handled it—I can’t say more without any spoilers, but a sharp player will likely pick up on it. It’s in such a way that I’m still not sure if it was designed to be so easy to guess or not. Nevertheless, the story flows well and has a nice build to the ending missions without much filler in between. However, some maps are reused, which is a bit disappointing.

Terminator: Resistance is definitely worth a look if you’re a fan of the Terminator franchise. It’s at a lower price to start with, but if you can get it during a sale, go for it no question. If you’re not a fan of the series, you might not be interested unless you’re keen to remember what FPS games were like 15 years ago. Don’t go in expecting flashy graphics or extravagant animations and physics, but the story fits in, dare I say, better than the worst of the films.

Terminator: Resistance is available on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.