Terminator: Dark Fate – Defiance

This game is a mix of wargame, xcom and lemmings.
Only reason I purchased TDF was Slitherines track record of unique strategy games.
Superficially, it appears to be a pause/play tactical meta. 50 hours in, I was not wrong but it is certainly a unique one.


Its a wargame because tactical micromanagement is critical to success. Strategy depends on you refining your divisions equipment and staffing.
You need to manage manpower and logistics units to reinforce, resupply and travel between sites.
Angle your tanks to front face the enemy. Consider armor ratings of buildings and ensure your troops are facing the correct way to ensure you don't miss the first shot.
Despite the many reviews citing difficulty - I did not find the campaign difficult - but it does punish mistakes.
Infantry trying to creep past a blind corner? Be prepared for a plasma MG to microwave your troops. Attend to this with recon, stealth and a prudent mix of antivehicle capability.
Trying to roll around with a mechanised blob? Urban terrain will digest you whole, with arty to finish whats left.
Ran out of fuel? Unless you have a flank defensive position to protect your fuel/supply trucks, be prepared to walk home.

It's an xcom-esque game - because units matter.
If you want your rangers to have firepower, EMP or scouting capability? Make sure they survive and upgrade them. If they die, start again with a new squad.
If you want to survive against air units - invest in ATGM's, upgrade and protect them.
Want to drive tanks? Protect your driving units, and upgrade technicians to drive tanks and don't let them die.
Vehicle upgrades are at the core of this game. Whether its strapping pinetrees to your semi-trailers, or retrofitting terminator tech to your Humvee.
The meta is to protect your high value units, and use them decisively.
You can lose this game if you run out of appropriately upgraded units and vehicles.

It's a lemmings game, because the variety of enemy units come in waves - as do your re-inforcements. Locking down your supply and reinforcement routes are a key part of this game. The enemy just keeps on coming. Don't waste time.

If you don't like micro, dont bother with this game.
If you are keen for a wargame with X-com character dynamics and a deep vehicle mechanics unique to TDF - this game is a unique approach to a classic genre.

Criminally Underrated. One of the most detailed RTS games I’ve ever played. - Highly recomended
I swear, this game is super underrated. The level of detail is insane. When an Abrams tank fires AP rounds and hits a Legion tank, you can literally see parts getting blown off. Not only that—those AP shells actually work like they should. One time I pierced through three Legion tanks in a row with a single AP shot. Nuts.
Missiles hitting buildings? You’ll see debris from upper floors collapsing to the ground. It’s not just visual fluff—the destruction feels real. And yes, every building in the game is destructible. You can even shoot through small gaps in structures. I’ve had bullets fly through three narrow openings and hit the enemy clean—as long as there's no obstacle. That level of physics and interaction? Crazy satisfying.
Gameplay-wise, it’s like if Empire Earth or Age of Empires removed base-building and went full combat mode. You can order your units to garrison buildings, set up perimeters, and shoot from inside. That alone adds so much tactical depth. It’s honestly awesome.
But here's the big letdown… No Scenario Editor.
This is the part that broke my heart a bit. After you finish the campaign, there’s… nothing else. I thought I could keep using my fully-upgraded army in some kind of endgame mode or post-campaign missions—but nope. That’s it. “Wait… that’s all?” is literally what I said when the last mission ended.
There’s no replayability after that. Which is such a shame, because the mechanics and gameplay are TOO GOOD to be used once and done.
Please, we need a Scenario Editor. Not just Skirmish—an actual map editor where we can build layouts, place units, and create our own missions. Like, give us Midland or Oklahoma maps and let us go wild. Imagine building your own "defend the block" mission where Legion keeps throwing waves and waves of enemies, and you try to hold them off with your customized troops and fortifications.
My dream scenario?
That one mission in Midland where you’re told to “regroup at the block to the north”—man, I’ve spent hours there just setting up defenses. I kept wishing Legion would just keep coming endlessly, so I could test how solid my setup was.
There are a few buildings in that area I always use as key defense points, and I genuinely love spending time optimizing them. I’ve played this game for over 100 hours, and a huge chunk of that was just trying to perfect moments like that.
If we had a proper editor, I’d make a map where I throw one trillion Legion units at my fully-upgraded army just to see how long I can last. Let me be the Founder, let me pick what units I want, and let me go nuts. That’s the dream.
Final words – thank you devs
I bought this game full price, and I have zero regrets. You guys made something truly special. The mechanics, the realism, the tactical gameplay—this is easily one of the best RTS games I’ve played in years.
But please, give this game the long-term love it deserves. Add a scenario editor or some kind of replayable mode, and I swear this game could have a cult following. It’s already got the foundation.
Thanks again for making such a detailed and immersive experience. I really hope you see this review.

Awesome use of the warfare engine to make what is honestly probably the best Terminator game of all time. It's really a shame the developers had to use the "Dark Fate" timeline, which sucks; Legion just doesn't have the same feel as Skynet, and the aesthetics and overall situation of humanity in that timeline feel a lot less hopeless than what we saw of the Future War in the 80s and 90s.

You'll see a lot of people complain about the difficulty. As it's intended to be, yeah this is probably one of the hardest tactics games I've ever played, especially when you're juggling between multiple objectives. You'll need to make liberal use of the pause button, allowing a few seconds to unfold, and then cycling to your other positions. And this is an RT*T*, real time tactics. You won't be able to just "attack move to win" across the map. You'll need sound strategy, a good understanding of the mechanics and honestly quite a bit of luck (nothing more infuriating than watching three ATGMs in a row zing past their intended targets) in order to pull off a successful playthrough.

The difficulty can be adjusted though, and on normal it's fairly forgiving. Adjust the supply use sliders to give yourself either an enjoyable or frustrating experience. I like it turned down enough to give me an actual army which can take afford casualties, instead of having to save-scum my way through because I keep losing my only tank.

The AI is hard, but fair. If you know are clever, or just know in advance, it's easy enough to use proper tactics to set up blocking positions and ambushes. You can bait enemy units into chasing a unit into an killzone, sometimes. If you're getting smacked with artillery, push out scouts and search for high-camo enemy spotters. The first time I played Oklahoma City was a NIGHTMARE because I treated the game more like starcraft up until that point than the actual game that it is. Think smart, advance properly, and watch your men smash those metal motherf****rs into bits. Fail to plan, blob from one point to another, and Legion will not feel pity, or remorse or fear. It will not stop, EVER, until you are dead.

Great game, wish it was longer, eagerly anticipating the DLC.

I have not beaten the game yet, but from the amount I have experienced. I am surprised by how good it was.
My only issue is the fact the game takes place in the Dark Fate Timeline.
We don't play as the Resistance but as the Founders, and the only "Resistance" group is called Movement.
Don't get me started on calling Skynet Legion, it's Skynet. Period.
Also Cartel? What?
The Story is so dumb but ignoring that, the game is genuinely good.

i never thought id see a terminator game where time travel is actually a gameplay mechanic (save scumming)

I have such a love-hate relation with this game.
Do I recommend you playing it? Not really. I have never been so frustrated with an RTS. But there is alot of fun to be had. And it does so much well but at the same time you will hate it.
The game has SO much attention to detail into all the units and systems. Clearly a lot of passionate people worked on the game from all areas. Including weapon and vehicle design. And all the mechanics are solid and really well thought out. The customization and management is really well thought out too.
The first time I saw an AI tank pop smoke my mind was blown. I thought they really did think of everything.
Everything from the formations, weapon and armor design, even down to the ammocount of vehicles and squads mimic reality. It's honestly cool and incredible to see the depth of how well thought everything is tactically and otherwise. And it's fun to juggle all the different challenges the game throws at you. And it will throw a lot often at once.
The missions have a lot of neat depth and it kind of feels like one of those RPGs with the level crawling I haven't seen in a while. The choices are neat to see too in an RTS.
That being said, This is an absolute rage game.
Somehow even worse than the original company of heroes and xcom combined. Be prepared to slog your way through multi-hour long missions kicking and screaming as your bradley whiffs all its shots and proceeds to get one-shot by one of thousand recoilless rifles in every building.
It wouldn't be so bad if you weren't fighting the cartel half the game with your hands tied behind your back getting pressurewashed by suicidal RPGs and recoilless rifles. Or constantly rolling the dice and hoping your one and only valuable and irreplaceable unit doesn't miss the tank and get everyone killed. There is little hope of predictability when everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. Has a chance of getting you killed.
This game makes me feel like I'm in the middle of nam or in a certain nondescript desert. Grinding down entire cityblocks with artillery while facing a constant pressurewasher of RPGs and recoilless rifles, going building to building clearing towns, only for another one of your favorite squads to get gunned down by a tank that spawned behind you or an unseen sniper or RPG squad.
That being said when it gets going it GOES. You really do feel like an elite military unit dividing up your army to perfectly clear and deal with multiple enemies at once as you plow through a superior foe. You have to think on your feet a lot for this one.
That being said....
DEVS PLEASE MAKE THE GAME LESS RNG INTENSIVE. Reduce the randomness in aim to give the game at least some predictability especially when we're so reliant on those shots hitting. We NEED them to hit.
Especially as the weapons and tools we use aren't expendable and everything in existence punishes you with instant death grinding the game to a halt when you lose too many squads or an essential vehicle. If this is going to happen we need more resources and for losses to be less felt.
The game needs to do as much as it can when possible to reduce the amount of mechanics grinding down the player. All of the armor mechanics are wonderful and the idea of gradually depleting armor or irreplaceable losses are nice. But there are so many of these sorts of mechanics it makes it brutal to recover from any losses. Especially if the mission is going to go on for hours.
P L E A S E give us a way to recover knocked out vehicles after battle. That way losing a vehicle doesn't force a reload.
Likewise have the game tally vehicles against drivable units so we aren't forced to collect everything after.
Likewise give us some more counters to dug in infantry in buildings that don't involve artillery. The number of times I've pushed through smoke only to get one-shot by a random recoilless shooting through it that missed is agonizing.
This also ties back to the predictability point where smoke isn't necessarily something to be relied upon as sometimes the recoilless rifles or RPGs will perfectly snipe your vehicle through smoke. Something the AI spams an annoying amount of
And fix the admittedly awful issues with spawns. They're so close to the objectives you need to go to and give so little warning when they'll spawn an infantryman, tank, or artillerygun that will spawn and instantaneously execute another 3 squads in seconds and force a reload. If the spawns simply held off while they were there or used alternative spots everything would be so much less painful.
There are also a lot of frustrating unit designs to deal with. Stuff that pretty much forces you to roll the dice no matter how deal with it unless it involves artillery. Stuff like the MLRS spider, recoilless rifle squads, or artillery can easily one-shot squads and vehicles with minimal warning. Rolling up tanks on artillery and spiders is particularly annoying and their range forces you to take shots in return and hope for a good outcome. You have just as much of a chance of killing them as they do you with direct fire.
MLRS spiders should have a bit of a wind up and our units less prone to missing. Artillery should take more time to travel, give more of a warning, take time to setup and fire, and be less prone to one-shotting tanks in direct fire. The AI should be less suicidal with certain units. And recoilless rifles or infantry in general shouldn't be able to walk up and calmly set down their rifle while being shot at by an entire firing line to shoot a tank or another squad.

Terminator Dark Fate Defiance is a surprisingly strong entry in the real-time tactics space. It rewards smart positioning, use of cover, and flanking, making each encounter feel meaningful and earned. The game doesn’t let you win with sheer numbers; you need to outthink the enemy. Terrain and line of sight actually matter here, which adds a welcome layer of depth to every engagement. Resource and unit management are handled well, keeping the pressure on without becoming frustrating. The suppression and morale systems are a great touch, shifting the tide of battle based on how effectively you control the battlefield. Enemy AI reacts intelligently, forcing you to stay sharp and adapt your tactics on the fly. Missions are well designed, often presenting multiple ways to approach an objective depending on your playstyle. The interface is clean and easy to navigate, which helps keep the focus on strategy rather than micromanagement. Overall, it’s a rewarding experience for anyone who enjoys thoughtful, grounded tactical combat.