Ever since theTerminatorfirst travelled back in time to assassinate Sarah Connor, the cyborg killing machine has also appeared in video game adaptations. James Cameron’s murderous mechanoids seem tailor-made for the interactive medium, providing developers with terrifying villains perfect for horror, stealth, or action gameplay.
The most recent incarnation was Teyon’s 2019 first-person shooter,Terminator: Resistance. With publisher Reef Entertainment recently teasing that a newTerminatorproject is in the pipeline, it’s the perfect time to look back at the franchise’s video gaming history.
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Game Adaptations Based on The Terminator and T2
The Terminatorwas released in 1984 and immediately became a box office hit, introducing the world to Arnold Schwarzenegger and the prospect of nuclear annihilation at the hands of a sinister neural network called Skynet. Gaming adaptations were surprisingly slow to follow after years of development problems, cancellations, and rights wrangling, with Sunsoft’sTerminatorgame eventually published asJourney to Siliusin 1990 after it lost the license.
The first trueTerminatortie-in didn’t arrive until 1991 withBethesda’s DOS-based action-adventure game,The Terminator. This innovative title allowed players to play as either Kyle Reese, tasked as in the movie with protecting Sarah Connor, or as theTerminatoritself, whose job it is to kill her. The game was broadly praised, although its complicated control system received some criticism.
That year also saw the release of aTerminator 2game on the archaicZX Spectrum, alongside an arcade game, a pinball machine, and a Game Boy title also based upon the second movie. 1992 saw more releases, includingThe Terminator, a platform shoot ’em up developed by Probe Software and released on Sega Genesis and other Sega consoles. The game received largely positive reviews despite not adhering to the lead programmer’s original vision, which once again was to have the player play as theTerminatoritself.
A DOS-based game entitledThe Terminator 2029was also released in the same year, as well asThe Terminatorfor the NES, a side-scrolling action game featuring platforming and driving segments. This game and its 1993 SNES counterpart, once again calledThe Terminator, both received mixed reviews, criticized for their sub-par graphics and unoriginal gameplay. 1993 also saw the release of aSega CDincarnation of the first movie, first-person shooterTerminator: Rampageon PC,Terminator 2on 8-bit consoles, and anotherTerminator 2for Sega Genesis and SNES.
1994 brought the crossover titleRoboCop Vs The Terminator, which pitted the Detroit-based cyborg lawman against legions of deadly Terminators in a side-scrolling shooter. A frantic few years for the franchise ended with Bethesda’sThe Terminator: Future Shockin 1995 andSkynetin 1996. It almost seemed like developers were rushing to cram in as many games as possible before the predicted Skynet apocalypse in 1997.
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The Terminator in the 2000s
Thankfully, humanity survived into the new millennium, with theTerminatorIP also going strong. 2002 saw the release of third-person shooterThe Terminator: Dawn Of Fateon PS2 and Xbox, but the franchise really seemed to be gathering momentum with the 2003 release of a third movie installment,Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, prompting the expected slew of tie-ins.
However, a PS2 and Xbox release with the same title as the movie received negative reviews, as didTerminator 3: War of the Machines, which was another first-person shooter on PC. Fans would have to wait until 2004 for the aptly namedTerminator 3: The Redemption, which released on GameCube, PS2, and Xbox, for a game that received a reasonably positive critical response. ATerminator 3pinball machinealso materialized in 2003, this time featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger’s voice talents, as well as a mobile game called simplyThe Terminator.
Another mobile game calledThe Terminator: I’m Back!was released in 2004, followed byTerminator Revenge, yet another mobile game, in 2006. By 2009 and the release of latest movieTerminator Salvation, fans’ perceptions of the films and the games seemed to be disintegrating faster than a T800 dunked in molten metal. The new movie was not well received, and neither was the game adaptation developed by Grin and Halcyon Games.Terminator Salvationalso spawned a 2010 arcade light gun game, but the film went on to be a box office flop that bankrupted its production company.
2015 brought another franchise reboot, this time withTerminator Genisys. Two adaptations were released, specificallyTerminator Genisys: RevolutionandTerminator Genisys: Future War, bothmobile gamesthat were poorly received by critics and considered to be shallow movie cash-ins. As withTerminator Salvation, the new film was critically panned, and its two planned sequels were swiftly terminated.
The most recent movie,2019’sTerminator: Dark Fate, again performed poorly at the box office, and again consigned two planned sequels to the void. This didn’t stop the movie from spawning a video game tie-in, with an MMO strategy game bearing the same title released for mobile devices. 2019 also saw the release of Teyon’sTerminator: Resistance, which has since received a PS5 upgrade, as well as a guest appearance for theTerminatorin Mortal Kombat XI.
The dreadful commercial and critical performance of everyTerminatormovie since the original two classics, as well as the advancing age of star Arnold Schwarzenegger, rightly gives fans cause for concern. ButReef’s teaser about a newTerminatorprojectgives them hope that they may yet see a new incarnation of their favorite franchise, even if only in video game form. Despite the struggles of the recent films, it seems that as long as the license is available, there will always be game developers willing to prove that theTerminatorwas right when he told us he’d be back.
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