Terminator meets Survival?

 How BAaAaD could it be?

So it's no great secret of the universe that I and Survival Games don't exactly see eye to eye. I admit to being a great lover of a hundred dozen different types of games all big and small, but some mental block keeps me out of the survival game genre to the point where I considered 'Survivors' from the same team as the excellent 'Escapists' to be one of the worst games I've played in the past 5 years. Yeah, I really don't gel well with the 'collect to keep alive' gameplay cycle. Don't get me wrong, I think a healthy sprinkle of Survival can do wonders as an addendum to an already rich gameplay slate, such as a bonus mode for Fallout New Vegas or games that have major core conceits- but when it's the be-all end-all of the gameplay loop I cannot imagine anything more inane than collecting items to keep your never ending needs high enough that you can attempt to have fun doing literally anything else. It's busywork turned into a gameplay mechanic, I despise it. Which is a wonderful start already, considering this game's title!

Nacon has been a publisher I've already got a bit of bone to pick with after watching their Greedfall 2 trailer and realising the thing is releasing in Early Access; (More on that in another blog) which is why I'll admit to a certain amount of scepticism when rocking up to their other big name announcements like "Oh, what about this Terminator game?" Afterall, Terminator is a franchise that is long toothed enough to have nothing more to offer in terms of movies, perhaps once in a blue moon the franchise could instead offer something great to the audience- a real knock-out video game that combines all we love from the imagery and feel of the Terminator world! It shouldn't be too insanely hard to do, right? There's nothing obscenely different about the Terminator universe that can't recycle the building blocks of game design, at least not off the top of my head....

And in comes 'Terminator: Survivors' to remind the world that yes- apparently it is 'Obscenely Difficult' to conjure up a world that James Cameron imagined in a one minute flashback scene back in 1984. You remember the one, right? The dark skies,  mountains of rock and rubble cities, purple lasers flying across the sky and most importantly: The ever steady marching army of metal. The key most defining characteristic of Skynet's forces is the fact that it is relentless and brazen. It doesn't need to take cover or strategize, it can march across a battlefield littered with dirty human skulls whilst hip firing heavy lasers and still overwhelm any army that it comes across. That is the world of the Terminator should the time travelling ploy fail to stop it- and that is what no one seems capable of reproducing.

For evidence I submit none other than Terminator: Survivors which from the very first second of it's miniscule trailer seems to conjure up more the image of 'The Day Before' than 80's apocalypse. Although I will back off a little and say that this looks leagues more polished than 'The Day Before' ever did, and we're not even seeing gameplay snippets yet. (That is how obvious of a scam The Day Before always was.) If I didn't see the title of the video that I clicked on I would have naturally assumed that the back-packing survivalists looting a gas station in the middle of the day were more extras in a generic zombie game, which is just about the worst thing you want a game from a highly recognisable franchise to be mistaken for. Pure forgettable mediocrity.

And sure, you might argue how that's just my first impression- but therein lies the fallacy- first impressions are really important! As is image! The very identity of what the original Terminator fantasy stood for, a situation of ultimate desperation against an unbeatable threat, wasn't really designed to facilitate entire narratives that exist therein, thus when you try to pull back the scope and treat the post-war world as the core setting of a narrative it has always fallen apart. Either the setting has to be altered so significantly in order to tell a coherent story that what is left over is unrecognisable (like Salvation's World) or you end up telling wild unbelievable stories that fit better in a comic book than a supposedly serious interpretation. Which is probably why the original Terminator comics are the only one's that got this period right.

But what about the game itself and what we can determine from what little exists about the game? Well in some ways it is both somewhat diegetic to world of Terminator (that's my favourite word lately, ain't it?) whilst being my worst nightmare. According to Steam what we're looking at is a Co-op game where you go around scavenging for resources in order to build a base to survive against Skynet. That's the entire marketing brief so far. Aside from vague assertations about close-range combat and sturdy enemies, it appears this project contains no unique selling point aside from the property it's attached to. Which isn't the worst thing in the world I suppose, Hogwarts Legacy was similarly afflicted- but I worry that until we see more this game might be up for audition to 'most generic game reveal of 2024'.

And I can't really ignore the fact that the trailer is affixed to a gravely-throated country song about Skynet which just makes my stomach cringe into a walnut. I get it, somebody's grandpa was probably paid good money to put that out and you know what- I hope the old lad had a blast! It's just a pretty weird vibe to be setting in a techno-futurist hellscape, you know? I get that this is meant to be set early into the end-times, but I refute the sense of marketing this in a rural 'Walking Dead' sort of way. It's brand masking. Now Nacon are a AA developer who publish smaller scale games, so I'm not trying to compare this with the cream of the industry, I'm meeting the game at it's level and being honest- I'm not sure it passes the sniff test yet.

Terminator could really use at least one solid oorah into the game scape- by a big name developer who will just go all out on it- set some ground rules about what a Terminator game can be. (You know- assuming they'll actually be any big name studios left after everyone gets fired throughout 2024.) The Unreal Engine 5 glean of paint may make the game look pretty, but under the recently democratised AAA look is an experience that gives me Metal Gear Survive vibes- and those are the kinds of vibes absolutely no one should get ever. The moral of this story? If you want to make the best impression with your brand new game reveal- maybe start when you have a smidge of gameplay first. (It worked for Robocop, didn't it?)