Terminator: Survivors, a new open-world survival game set in the Terminator franchise, will launch in early access on Steam this fall, publisher Nacon announced Thursday at its Nacon Connect 2024 event.
Developer Nacon Milan did not reveal gameplay footage of Terminator: Survivors, but did offer some concept art for the game and ideas about what players can expect. The first-person shooter will be set in 2009, after the nuclear cataclysm brought about by Skynet and before the formation of John Connor’s resistance against the rogue AI’s machines. Terminator: Survivors will draw on the fiction of the first two Terminator films, its creators say.
According to Marco Ponte, CEO and creative director at Nacon Milan, Terminator: Survivors players will face “the dangers of the post-apocalyptic world, and trying to cope with the threats posed by other human beings,” as well as threats from Skynet’s machines, including the iconic Terminator T-800. At first, Ponte said, survivors in the game world will be “unaware of the existence of Skynet and the Terminator,” but later will “join forces with other survivors and discover the truth about the ongoing conflict and begin to fight back.” Players will meet “famous characters” from the Terminator franchise, in addition to new ones.
Terminator: Survivors will have base-management elements and first-person shooter mechanics, and can be played either solo or in co-op in groups of four. Based on the game’s two trailers, encounters with Terminators are implied to be rare; so far, we’ve seen just one T-800 hunting human prey, unlike the massive-scale human vs. Skynet battles shown in the Terminator movies (and in the recently released strategy game Terminator: Dark Fate – Defiance). But they’ll still be a threat. Skynet’s machines “will hound you relentlessly, while other humans will be eyeing up the same resources as you,” Nacon said in a news release.
Terminator: Survivors will launch in early access on Steam for Windows PC on Oct. 24, just days before the 40th anniversary of the franchise’s launch. The game will come to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X at a later date, the publisher said.
2024 has already been a big year for survival games, with the launches of Palworld, Enshrouded, and Nightingale. Hopefully, Terminator: Survivors’ unique setting and terrifying enemy will help it stand out from the crowd.
