Terminator Dark Fate – Defiance: Uprising Review

Hit & Miss

HIGH Post-Apocalyptic conquest.

LOW Repetitive mission objectives.

WTF Insta-Fail in an RTS!?

Terminator Dark Fate – Defiance was Slitherine’s real-time strategy take on the world of James Cameron’s Terminator. The second and latest DLC to the game, Uprising, continues the story of the Founders — the early human resistance against Skynet machines and their quest to fight back against the remaining Legion machines and human renegade groups that threaten the survival of mankind.

The basic gameplay elements are unchanged, and Uprising is a skirmish add-on to the base game. The goal of the new single-player campaign is to capture new regions in the new world map controlled by enemy forces.

The map is comprised of 22 tiles. Each tile is a mission played in real-time during which the player needs to hold points of interest and wait for reinforcements while fighting off enemies and ultimately forcing them to retreat. By conquering the tiles and defeating enemies, players gain control of regions, which will then reward them with access to different weapons, units, and upgrades.

Players can only launch an attack on a neighboring tile/region, and each mission will last a full day in the in-world timeline. At the end of the day, the enemy can also launch an attack on adjacent tiles, possibly changing the balance of power. Thus, the player not only needs to conquer new lands, but also to defend their turf against enemy counterattacks. Losing a region to enemy forces means losing access to all unit types and upgrades provided by that region.

Uprising provides a great balance between defensive and offensive gameplay by putting pressure on the logistical side of the war. Losing control of a region no longer only means another battle to fight to win it back, the potential loss of resources provided by that tile must also be weighed. As such, players are sometimes faced with the choice to sacrifice a region with less logistical value in order to defend one that provides them with a better resource or unit — in my case, Abrams tanks.

Another challenging aspect of Uprising are the factions. Marauders, the Cartel, Integrators, and Legion forces are four enemy groups the player will face. Each has a stronghold in a specific region, acting as its HQ. If the player manages to capture the HQ tile on the map, the faction is either destroyed or unable to expand their territory. While capturing all the HQs is marked as the official ‘end’ of the Uprising campaign, players can continue to fight for total control even after the credits roll. Thus, when it comes to replayability, Uprising is packed with enough content to keep players busy for more than a while.

The main downside of this DLC is a lack of mission variety. As was already mentioned, most of the 22 missions are about holding specific points and there are only a few that offer a more complicated structure, such as tightening the siege on enemy HQ, or completing specific objectives. Though the player is free to advance in the world map and lead the conquest in any direction, this lack of variety creates a feeling of repetition, which kicks in after completing just a few missions.

One potentially controversial design element in Uprising is the fact that not all of the player’s forces can immediately join battle. For example, players can only bring one tank and three light vehicles at the beginning of each mission. If the player had no light vehicles but had two tanks, the extra tank is locked out until later stages of the mission, when more reinforcements would be available. The fact that there is no system implemented to choose between fewer stronger unit types or a greater number of weaker ones — the classic trade-off between quality and quantity — makes no sense for a DLC focused on skirmish scenarios.

Added to that limitation is a ridiculous insta-fail state during missions. Holding points of interest in missions allows players to gradually bring more of their army in to join each battle. But, if the rate at which players gain reinforcements is lower than the rate at which enemy forces are deployed to the mission for too long, the mission will fail even if there’s a huge army alive and kicking on the ground! For example, if the enemy held four out of five points of interest and brought additional forces army into the mission while I was holding my ground perfectly with plenty of functional units in the area, the mission could fail regardless of any long-term plans!

The rest of the experience, including economy, unit types, weapons and upgrades, is just like the base game with the added benefit that now every playable unit type (excluding Legion forces) can be recruited.

Uprising is a total war conquest between all enemy factions established in the game. While it provides a welcoming level of freedom when it comes to choosing missions, it can’t maintain the same quality when it comes to mission objectives and design. It’ll be an enjoyable product for those who already love the base game, and maybe that’s enough.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Slitherine. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and 7 hours were dedicated to the content. This content was completed.

Parents: This game has no ESRB rating. It contains mild language. It contains mild language and some violence. Robots and humans fight and kill each other in the game, but there’s no blood or gore.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can’t be altered or resized. There are some necessary audio cues in the game such as sounds made by each enemy unit that are not subtitled. The game is not fully accessible.