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Back in 2007, The Halcyon Company acquired the rights to the Terminator franchise. With a Terminator: Salvation movie tie-in in mind, Halcyon formed a games-publishing division in hopes of maintaining full control over the production value of the game. When dealing with any game based on a movie, there is one major challenge facing any studio and publisher, the fact that history is against them. With the exception of Star Wars, most core gamers just won't go for movie-licensed games.
However, Halcyon may just be playing their cards right. They have hired Stockholm, Sweden-based studio GRIN to develop the game. GRIN is the team responsible for the PC version of Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfigher as well as the resurrection of Capcom's classic Bionic Commando in two flavors, Bionic Commando: Rearmed, (a remake of the original NES classic with updated graphics) and the still in production Bionic Commando (a brand-new adventure in the Bionic Commando story).
Terminator: Salvation, slated for May 2009, will coincide with the movie's theatrical release. While no particular platforms have been announced, videos so far appear to be from a PS3 or Xbox 360 game. As expected, the game will be based on the film, but no word yet on how closely the game will follow the movie's plotline. Salvation takes the futuristic 3rd-person shooter approach, and puts players in control of the leader of the human resistance, the now 30-year-old John Connor.
The game takes place somewhere around the year 2018, after Skynet became self-aware and launched the nuclear war against mankind in what is now known as Judgment Day. The battle-trained John Connor, whose destiny was decided before he was born, now leads the human resistance against the forces of Skynet.
Terminator: Salvation will force players to into firefights with armies of machines. Some of the robots will be from the movies and TV show, while others are created exclusively for the game. It is possible that some Terminators will even fight by the player's side, aiding them on their quest for humanity. Details are sparse, but we can probably also expect to see everyone's favorite Cyberdyne Systems Series 800 Model 101 Terminator or as most of us know him, Arnold.
In the short trailer that debuted on December 14th during Spike TV's Video Game Awards show we were presented with a short montage of gameplay footage showing the player running through the post-nuclear world of which Terminator's future is set. While staying true to the Terminator's oppressing ‘no fate' for mankind storyline the game does not appear to stray too far from the award-winning Gears of War formula of fast-paced, action oriented run-n-gun gameplay all while making good use of the duck-and-cover system.
From the trailer, we have also learned that there will be some implementation of vehicular combat. Players will man the turrets of military jeeps for high speed chases as they try to shoot down Flying HKs (Hunter Killers). Let's just hope the resistance has stocked up on those ground-to-air missiles.
At this point there has been no mention of a multiplayer mode of any kind. Team deathmatches of Man vs. Machine complete with vehicles set in the Terminator universe could have some serious potential if done well. Whether or not the game will have any such mode remains to be seen, but the outline for a strong multiplayer mode is already set with the Terminator storyline. Whether the studios at work will use that to their advantage remains to be seen.
Come May 2009, Terminator: Salvation will put players in the role of mankind's last hope. Until more details emerge, we can do nothing more than wait and speculate. Game of the Year material or not, with a team like GRIN on the development side, Terminator: Salvation may actually turn out to be a worthwhile gaming experience.
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