The new Terminator 2D already looks like the best Terminator game since the Genesis, and I'm not kidding
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Terminator 2: Judgement Day is the single greatest Hollywood blockbuster of all time. I don't care about box office receipts or any other criteria other than the fact that this is the most beautifully-paced and spectacular action movie I've ever seen. I've been watching it on repeat ever since my dad brought home the VHS tape way back in the early '90s, and it's one of those films that is so thrilling and packed with detail that it will never get old. It's terrifically sad they never made another Terminator movie after this, but what're you going to do.
At the time there were several game tie-ins, and I particularly remember the Game Boy one, mainly because it featured the Arnie/John bike scene and had an amazing animation for aiming the shotgun backwards or forwards. But my fondest memories of a Terminator game is the 2D adaptation of the original movie for the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis in America), which went all-out trying to recreate the grimy and gory aesthetic while being a great 2D shooter that stayed as faithful as it could to the film's major beats.
I suspect that more than a few of the developers at Bitmap Bureau also have fond memories of that game, because the newly announced Terminator 2D: No Fate almost feels like the direct sequel it never got. This is a 2D adaptation of Terminator 2 that in its first trailer, just over a minute long, serves up outstanding recreations of the movie's biggest blowout scenes, which feature distinct styles of play, and simply screams "love letter" from every pixel.
Arnie's arrival melting a concave chunk out of the truck he lands next to: Check. Sarah in the asylum, working out then going Rambo on the guards: Check. The T-800 socking thugs to get their clothes, John Connor screaming away from the T-1000 on his dirtbike, Arnie grabbing him off onto the Harley as the T-1000's truck closes in, Sarah and John running away in desperation at the foundry… check check check check!
Obviously we need to keep things in perspective: This is a 2D side-scrolling game. It's not gonna rewrite the rulebook nor win many game of the year awards. But it feels laser-targeted at those of us who grew up sometime in the '90s and adored this movie, and as Bitmap Bureau's Mike Tucker puts it: "We feel like it's the T2 game we should have had back in our youth."
The levels seem to split between Contra-style run-n-gun, brawler sections, fixed shooting sequences (such as Arnie shooting at the cops from high-up in Cyberdyne systems), and in the Sarah Connor prison section I got vibes of both Prince of Persia and Blizzard's Blackthorne. Most intriguing is the promise of "a unique story blending iconic scenes from the film with original scenarios and multiple endings."
Terminator 2D: No Fate is released on Epic Games Store and Steam on September 5th, 2025. In the meantime, this short 'making of' featurette gives a glimpse at even more of the levels and set-pieces to expect, as well as showing a team that's clearly stoked to be working on this. Come release, I'll be back to see if this really is as good as it looks.
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