Two months ago at NACON Connect 2024, video game developer Nacon dropped a trailer for their upcoming game Terminator: Survivors. The minute-long trailer, titled "The Aftermath," focuses on a group of human survivors as they stop to search a gas station for supplies. At the very end of the trailer, we see they are being hunted by a T-800.
The trailer generated a lot of excitement, but even more questions about the upcoming game. In a new post on the game's Steam page, developer Nacon sought to answer some of the questions regarding the game's lore and its general gameplay mechanics.
Storywise, Terminator: Survivors is set in 2009, just a few years after Skynet attained self-awareness and initiated a global nuclear assault. The developer explained that Sarah Connor succeeded in preventing the Judgment Day event of 1997, but it merely postponed the inevitable. Following the nuclear assault and extermination of billions, humanity is left to exist in smaller communities. Nacon explained:
Those who were distant enough from the epicenters or who found refuge in anti-nuclear bunkers had to confront the onset of a new era amidst radiation and societal collapse. With long-range communication systems offline, people congregated in small, often conflicting communities, striving to secure the scarce resources available.
In Terminator: Survivors, players traverse an environment affected by the explosions and scarred by years of radiation. It’s 2009, and various factions are competing for dominance over territory and vital resources. Very few people are aware of the events that led to the dropping of the bombs and, especially at the beginning of the game, only a few know about Skynet's existence.
Skynet, of course, isn't just sitting idly by, both in the present preparing for war and from the future to win it. If you've wondered why there's a T-800 so far back in the timeline from watching the trailer, you'll discover while playing that the one dispatched to 1984 is but a solitary pawn in Skynet's elaborate scheme to tilt the scales of war in its favor.
Terminator: Survivors is a first-person survival shooter that's playable solo or with friends. While the entire game is fully playable in a single-player offline mode, players can opt to experience the entire story of the game in multiplayer with up to three friends. The game features an original main storyline along with secondary quests that expand upon the world's history and its diverse inhabitants.
As the trailer alluded, a T-800 is hunting these survivors. Nacon confirmed that the game will feature just a single T-800 as a "relentless and formidable hunter that cannot be stopped."
Part of the reason for just a single T-800 is to be consistent with the lore of the timeline. Since Terminator: Survivors is set in 2009, it's shortly after Judgment Day "when Skynet's production capabilities hadn't yet reached their peak," Nacon explained.
Another contributing factor is the overall tone and atmosphere. Nacon sought to "capture the essence of the first two films, where the looming threat of an unstoppable machine instilled a sense of dread and urgency."
"By featuring a lone T-800 as the relentless antagonist, players are immersed in an atmosphere of constant peril and tension. Much like the protagonists in the movies, players will experience the harrowing sensation of being hunted by an adversary that knows no mercy and cannot be reasoned with."
Terminator: Survivors is set to release in early access for PC (Steam) on October 24, 2024. It is slated to come to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S at a later date.