The 1980s was a decade filled with some of the most influential pop-culture franchises of all time. The original Star Wars trilogy wrapped up in the early 80s, Indiana Jones got his debut in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Tom Cruise took to the skies in Top Gun, and The Breakfast Club was formed. However, there was one director who was pretty prolific during this decade: James Cameron. In 1984, James Cameron directed a one-of-a-kind Sci-Fi action movie starring one of the biggest stars of the decade. It may not have grossed as much as modern blockbusters do, but The Terminator is certainly one of the most influential movies of all time.
Following a surprisingly complex plot, The Terminator sees Arnold Schwarzenegger's titular T-800 travel back in time to kill Sarah Connor, who will one day birth a son that will go on to be the savor of mankind, stopping the Skynet AI uprising. The Terminator and its sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, are still believed to be some of the best action movies ever made, and over the years, the franchise has spawned quite a few video games. Just announced a few days ago, Nacon is developing its own Terminator game, taking players to a setting they haven't seen too much of in the movies.
Where Nacon's Terminator Game Fits On The Timeline
Put delicately, The Terminator timeline is a bit all over the place. Things begin pretty simple, as the first Terminator movie happens in the early 80s and both the T-800 and Kyle Reese travel back from the post-apocalyptic 2029 future, where the Skynet AI rebellion has lead to mass genocide. Terminator 2: Judgment Day takes place just over a decade later, in 1995, with a T-1000 being sent back in 2029 soon after the machines realize that Arnie's T-800 wasn't successful. By the end of the movie, Sarah and her son John Connor defeat the T-1000 and believe that they've managed to prevent Judgment Day.
Things start to get messy from here on out. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines sees Sarah Connor dying in 1997 from leukemia, and a now-adult John Connor going into hiding just in case any more Terminators are sent back. It turns out that the duo didn't prevent Judgement Day after all, they just postponed it to 2004. At the end of the movie, Judgment Day happens, and John Connor hides in a bunker to survive the nuclear blasts.
Terminator: Salvation then picks up in 2018, and sees John Connor save the past version of his father Kyle Reese, while Terminator: Genisys takes all of the franchise's lore and throws it in the trash, creating an alternate timeline in which Skynet activates in 2017 - erasing the entire franchise up to this point. Terminator: Dark Fate tries to do damage control, erasing everything past the second movie, giving it a modern day setting where Sarah Connor is still alive, but John isn't.
Nacon's new Terminator game is choosing to go for the least convoluted timeline available, and is taking place pretty soon after Judgment Day. At this time, the nukes have devastated the planet, and Skynet's machines patrol every inch of it, hunting down any humans that have somehow survived. Taking place soon after Judgment Day, Nacon's Terminator game is set before John Connor has created the resistance.
Nacon's Terminator game will apparently be an open-world survival title, which fits the game's place in the Terminator timeline very well. Without John Connor's resistance, it seems fairly likely that the player will be left to fight the overwhelming Skynet forces primarily by themselves, forced to scavenge whatever food, weapons, and supplies they can all while being hunted down by ruthless T-800s. With T-800s canonically being pretty hard to take down, it seems likely that Nacon's Terminator game will implement stealth mechanics as a way to traverse the dilapidated ruins of society.
Nacon's Terminator is currently in development.
