10 Things The Terminator Resistance Video Game Taught Us About Franchise Lore

Terminator lore has become quite convoluted over the years, especially since Dark Fate retconned the timeline to pick up immediately where Terminator 2: Judgment Day left off. In the midst of these changes came Terminator Resistance, a video game based on the hot property.

Resistance attempts to link itself directly to Terminator 1 and Terminator 2, with nods to both movies. Whether it’s officially canon or not is really of no concern. What’s more interesting is where the game inserts itself into the film franchise chronology.

SkyNet’s Main Targets

Many Terminator fans believe that SkyNet only had a handful of key targets for termination, but Resistance broadens that out a bit. Long before Sarah Connor became a primary target on its hit list, SkyNet also had Jessica Baron and Jacob Rivers in its crosshairs, regarding them as high-level threats.

Baron was essentially John Connor’s second in command up to that point, which meant that her death would deal a major blow to the resistance. Jacob Rivers was a bit of an anomaly, at least until the game progressed to the point where he found out why SkyNet wanted to take him out. This kind of thing was previously alluded to in Terminator 3 when SkyNet sends the T-X to eliminate Connor’s generals, one of the most unexpected things in a Terminator film.

Kyle Reese Losing His Squad Members

In the original Terminator film, Kyle Reese falls asleep and has a nightmare about a mission gone wrong during the future war timeline. The Annihilation Line DLC attempts to paint a bigger picture of this scene by directly injecting it into the storyline.

The character Ferro is the same woman who is blown to bits by a ground-based HK in The Terminator, while Evans is the one firing at an Aerial HK from the back of a car. The idea was to play upon a traumatic event in his past by amplifying the tragedy, which was evidenced in one of Kyle Reese’s scariest quotes from The Terminator. 

SkyNet Changes The Timeline

Time travel is one of The Terminator’s biggest tropes, but it’s a central element of the story. When SkyNet gained the ability to send Terminators back through time, it decided to start with one major target from its current era — Jacob Rivers. This is how the main storyline of Terminator Resistance begins, with Rivers in the crosshair of a T-850 Infiltrator unit.

Later, it’s learned that Rivers was instrumental in helping to destroy SkyNet’s defense grid, which forced the AI to send the Infiltrator back and stop him. It almost works, with SkyNet gaining knowledge of the future, which it uses to try and avert its own demise.

Kyle Reese Saved By Jacob Rivers

After Kyle Reese’s car is overturned during the battle with the Aerial HK in The Terminator, he’s shown desperately trying to escape before a burning fire engulfs him. In the Annihilation Line DLC, he’s saved by Jacob Rivers, the main character in the game.

The mission in question takes place in the final act of the DLC campaign and was designed to weave into a larger overall narrative focusing on John Connor’s assault on SkyNet’s defense grid.

Acquiring Sarah Connor As A Target

The first DLC add-on for Terminator Resistance was the Infiltrator mode, which put players in the shoes of a battle-damaged T-800 sent on an assassination mission. The objective is to gain clues to locate the whereabouts of a high-value target with intel on John Connor.

Once the mission has been accomplished, the Terminator manages to download information from a Tech-Com computer and learns of Sarah Connor for the first time. It’s this single name that SkyNet uses to send the first Terminator back through time, kicking off the events of the 1984 film.

Plasma Rifle Technology

Terminator 1 and T2 both showcased future war scenes featuring humanity battling the terrifying Terminators, which were equipped with plasma rifle technology. This was a creation of SkyNet that was later commandeered by Tech-Com forces and used to turn the tide.

In the game, plasma rifle tech initially fires red bursts, indicating its first-generation status. SkyNet later improves upon this weapon, creating second-gen plasma rifles with the familiar purple hue from the movies. Also, players must undertake a mission to locate a scientist capable of bypassing a security lockout, thereby granting the use of this new technology.

The Terminator Human Models

In the Annihilation Line DLC, Evans is introduced as a human soldier who once took out a Terminator with his own bare hands. It’s later established that Evans was used for the likeness of the T-800 itself, shortly before he dies in the game.

In the primary game campaign, players stumble upon the corpse of a man whose likeness was used as the model for the T-1000 from Terminator 2, which was an interesting way of answering longtime fan questions. It was definitely a nod to Robert Patrick’s dynamite performance in T2, which stands up even today.

The Letter To Kyle Reese

The beginning of the Annihilation Line DLC features a flashback of main character Jacob Rivers scavenging the wasteland with his father. The two come across a letter in a time capsule, one of which is later revealed to be for Kyle Reese.

At the end of the DLC campaign, Reese reveals that the message came from John, supposedly in the past, who knew of the inevitability of Judgment Day. The envelope the letter was stored in also contained the now-famous picture of Sarah Connor, which Reese treasured.

Perry’s Past

The Terminator franchise has made several references to a man named Perry, both in film, and TV shows like The Sarah Connor Chronicles. However, Terminator Resistance attempts to shed a little more light on Perry by telling the story of what happened to him.

In the game, he was Jessica Baron’s presumed lover and superior, who was killed by a Terminator during an attack. Baron assumed his position, reporting directly to John Connor. It isn’t known if this is the exact same Perry that Kyle Reese makes reference to during his interrogation scene from The Terminator, but it’s safe to assume.

More Intel About The T-850

Terminator 3 has officially been de-canonized following the ill-fated Terminator: Dark Fate storyline, but Resistance does pay a nod to the film by referencing the T-850. In Terminator 3, this was an upgraded version of the T-800, one of SkyNet’s deadliest machines which was capable of withstanding hits from plasma weaponry.

Resistance follows the same basic premise, but its T-850 models are used primarily for high-level infiltration missions that put it at severe risk. One of the standout sequences of the game involves the player going up against a T-850 in a prolonged battle, where its enhanced armor plating allows it to withstand plasma weapons fire.

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