By this time of year, we journalists have already settled on our favorites of the past twelve months. We’ve submitted our lists, written our think pieces, and braced for the arguing and deliberating with our peers. There’s little room for surprises, as the dust has largely settled, and we’re already looking to next year’s big games. But for me, a scrappy little latecomer has emerged. Terminator: Resistance is an enthralling action-RPG that successfully nails the tone and atmosphere of the classic films – even if doesn’t quite stick the landing in its second a𓂃ct.

Resistance, taking place in the ruined future following Judgement Day, is one of the only Western sandbox games in eons that understands the value of a player’s time. There’s no fat to this game, no obnoxious checklists to tick or arbitrary quotas to hit. There are open areas to explore, yes, and side missions, but they all feel liꦿke vital parts of the package and not monotonous pedantry.

The Fallout Of… Fallout

This is surprising, considering that Resistance is a blatant copping of the Bethesda-era Fallout entries in some aspects. Many elements of those games, from similar menu sounds to the exact same lock-picking minigame, are present – as is the Bethe🍌sda method of interacting with NPCs. But where Teyon’s game differs from those titles is that the package feels tighter and more focused, without the tonal incongruities, molasses pacing, and stale fetch quests. And, ah, yes, it treats nuclear holocaust like the horrible possibility it is, and not a fun joke represented by a silly little smiling man.

To expand on the idea of focus, Resistance offers same nuked-out plains found in other post-apocalyptic games, but without much in the way of meandering or backtracking. There are areas to be explored, relics to be found, and resources to be scavenged, certainly, but it’s a procession of open areas as opposed to a singular map. While some people might not jive with that too much, I personally enjoyed the variety shown in each area, and the basic excision of backtracking (outside of a few deliberate narrative beats.) “Linear Fallout” 𒅌might make some shudder, but it’s a novel con🐷cept done well.

Actual setpieces are equally as engaging, mostly because Resistance does something no video game has done with the franchise so ꦍfar: strips players of power.

Game Over, Man

You’re going to die in Terminator: Resistance a lot upfront. While the marketing hypes this game up to be a rollicking shooter, most of what you’ll be doing is scrapping for survival. Hiding in bushes, picking up spare parts, distracting enemies… you’re powerless pretty early on in this game, and that makes🔯 it all the better. Finally, a game puts play🍬ers in the shoes of a member of the Resistance – desperate to survive and not given a lot of means to do so.

There’s a real terror in navigating perilous maps that are occupied with things that can kill you in one or two hits. Rolling robots can swarm and explode on you with little warning; automated turrets can mow through you in a few hits. Skynet’s occupation of earth is just as🐷 deadly as the movies warned viewers, and now, players can feel the tangible struggle for life in interactive form.

Which is to say nothing of the actual Terminators themselves. Much like Alien: Isolation’s Xenomorphs, these aren’t things players are initially supposed to fight and conquer. Instead, they’re hulking, automated menaces that are practically unkillable and eager to slice you into swiss cheese at a moment’s notice. An early encounter in a burned-out hospital drives this home, as players are forced to watch helplessly while their comrades are tortured and systematically executed – unable to do anything to help them as they sneak around, trying not to get detected. It’s a harrowing and horrific moment, and one of many in Resistance.

Unfortunately, the latter half of the game definitely loses sight of that vision. Players eventually get access to weaponry that lets them basically eradicate the Terminators, and frankly, I’m not the biggest fan of that. The game stops feeling like a desperate struggle, as if the developers threw up their hands and said, “Yeah, we know, you wanna kill the bad robots.” While the overall narrative and mechanics hold solid throughout, it’s a bit disappointing to see Resistance cave like this. There are ways to e🐷mpower the player without cheapening the impact of the threat,𓃲 and unfortunately, Teyon doesn’t nail that.

Rough Around The Edges

Something else that also isn’t quite nailed is the presentation. It’s decidedly a budget game, with some rough visuals and fairly unremarkable sound design. The voice acting is also pretty subpar, with some traipsing into “outright bad” territory. While the game does a fantastic job of capturing the dreary, dark aesthetic of Terminator 2’s future sequences, and features a fairly decent soundtrack, there’s no denying that this thing💧 was made on a shoestring.

But the thing is that, really, there’s a sort of charm to the package because of this. If this were put out by a big publisher like Ubisoft or EA, a certain degree of soul would be missing from the package. Resistance feels like a passion project from a bunch of people who might not have had a ton of money at their disposal, but wanted to try their damnedest to make the most accurate, faithful adaptation of Terminator in gaming to date. That carries it through the decidedly low-budget pr✨esentation.

Hasta La Vista, Baby

Terminator: Resistance is a scrappy little game with a lot of heart, ambition, and genuinely great design in parts. It definitely could’ve benefited from a more compelling latter half, and the presentation will throw off a lot of people. However, it’s the most accurate interactive translation of the franchise to date, and frankly, a better yarn than many of the films between Judgement Day and Dark Fate. For the price, and for꧅ diehard fans, this is one game worth coming back to.

A PC review copy of Terminator: Resistance was provided to TheGamer for this review. Terminator: Resistance is available now for PlayStatio🍰n 4, Xboꦬx One, and PC.

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