Slitherine announced today at its Home of Wargamers live event that it is working on a new game in the Terminator universe called Terminator Dark Fate: Defiance.
Defiance is the result of a partnership with Skydance that began when Slitherine approached them before the release of Terminator Dark Fate. According to Slitherine marketing director Marco A. Minoli, the publisher noticed that its core strategy gaming audience was a lot of people in their 30s who grew up with sci-fi classics, which made the territory fertile ground for licencing deals. With deals in place for a Battlestar Galactica game and Starship Troopers, Terminator seemed like a natural next step.
Of course, Skydance was gearing up to announce Dark Fate, so the cooperation was a natural fit. As a result, Slitherine teamed up with Skydance and Russian studio Cats Who Play to begin development on Defiance, which Minotti describes as “the largest thing we’ve ever done.”
While most licencing arrangements are quite detached in terms of IP-holder involvement, he claims that Slitherine’s relationship with Skydance for Defiance is extremely intimate. Despite Dark Fate’s low box office performance in 2019, they’re working with the producers to guarantee Defiance has a place in the future of the Terminator franchise, which director James Cameron has already planned out further to include additional spin-off projects such as an anime series.
Between Dark Fate’s “present-day” and the Legion-controlled future of 2042, Defiance fits into the universe. The game’s storey puts players in command of the “Founders,” an ex-military group battling the Legion as it climbs to power. There are also other factions, including the Resistance, the Cartel, and others, some of which will be available in the multiplayer modes of Defiance.
Defiance’s campaign, on the other hand, is a narrative-driven real-time strategy game that requires players to make decisions about who they associate with and how they navigate through maps to advance the storey. While the campaign as a whole is pretty linear, there is some variation based on who players side with as they progress, both in terms of the storey and the units and equipment available to them.
Defiance is a real-time strategy game that focuses on building an army and positioning it on the battlefield, including the ability to take over buildings, position yourself on different floors, and destroy them while fighting. Many of their layouts are inspired by the study of the real cities they’re meant to reflect. Maps aren’t limited to just cities, but also include open countryside in locations across the United States.
Terminator Dark Fate: Defiance is planned for release on PC in the second half of 2022.
