There are 32 Terminator games. The first came out in July 1991, a DOS game from Bethesda, and the newest is Terminator 2D: No Fate from December 2025. On top of that the T-800 and T-1000 have turned up as guests eight times, from Mortal Kombat 11 to Call of Duty: Mobile.
- 1991-1993: six games called The Terminator, starting with an open-world Los Angeles
- 1991-1994: five different Terminator 2 games and an arcade shooter with the film's cast
- 1992-1996: four Bethesda shooters, two of them with Todd Howard on the team
- 2002-2004: three Atari games on PS2 and Xbox, scored from 25 to 68
- 2009: Salvation without Christian Bale, and GRIN's last game
- 2010-2019: phones, cinemas and a VR ride at Dave & Buster's
- 2019: Resistance, 60 from critics and 92% from players
- 2024: Defiance, a strategy game about fighting Legion, with 252 people online
- 2025: 2D: No Fate, Terminator 2 in pixels and a 79 on Xbox
- Survivors: announced in 2022, promised for 2024, still no date in 2026
- Terminator as a guest: 8 confirmed appearances since 2019
- All 32 Terminator games in order
- Scores and reviews in numbers
- Where to start in 2026
Half of those 32 games were released in the first six years, 1991 to 1996. The best critic score in 34 years went to a pixel-art game from 2025, the worst, a 25, to a 2003 online shooter. Only three of the 32 are still sold digitally today. Below is every game in release order, what is still alive, and where to start if you want to be Sarah Connor or the T-800 himself.
1991-1993: six games called The Terminator, starting with an open-world Los Angeles
Bethesda released The Terminator for DOS in July 1991, and it was a strange game for its year. Los Angeles is fully 3D and open, roughly 10 by 6 miles, with Dodger Stadium and Griffith Park on the map. You pick a side: Kyle Reese, who has to save Sarah, or the Terminator, who has to find her. According to the credits the whole thing is hand-written assembly, more than 35,000 lines. Today it looks like a pile of coloured boxes. In 1991 almost nobody else was trying to build an open city.
The video loads from YouTube (Google) when you press play. Privacy policyFour more unrelated games carried the same name. Probe Software's 1992 shooter for Mega Drive, Master System and Game Gear opens in 2029 at a Skynet base before Reese jumps back to 1984. The Sega CD version (1993) added clips from the film and a Tommy Tallarico soundtrack that reviewers singled out. Mindscape's NES game (December 1992) got its controls called awkward by Nintendo Power, and CVG said the SNES version (April 1993) looked like an 8-bit game. A sixth The Terminator arrived in 2003 on mobile phones from In-Fusio.
Two games based on the first film never shipped. Sunsoft showed a Terminator game for the NES at Winter CES 1989, lost the licence, and turned it into Journey to Silius; press reports say the story strayed too far from the film. Danish studio Robtek bought the rights to the first two films and went bankrupt without releasing anything.
1991-1994: five different Terminator 2 games and an arcade shooter with the film's cast
![Terminator 2: Judgement Day Longplay (Arcade) [4K]](https://framesgames.com/wp-content/uploads/yt-covers/vLh_DitivaU.jpg.webp)
The video loads from YouTube (Google) when you press play. Privacy policyTerminator 2 hit cinemas in the summer of 1991 and the games arrived almost at the same time. Ocean's computer version came out in August 1991, ZX Spectrum first. You are the T-800, and between chases and fist fights you have to repair yourself in a puzzle section. Ocean got the licence while the film was still being edited.
The one everybody remembers is Midway's arcade cabinet from October 1991: a two-player light-gun shooter with digitised graphics, the film's actors filmed specifically for the game. It was later ported as T2: The Arcade Game to Game Boy, Genesis, DOS, Game Gear, Master System, Amiga and, in 1994, the SNES.
The other T2 games were a long way behind:
- Game Boy, November 1991. You start as John Connor in 2029 and then switch to the T-800. Level three is a puzzle where John reprograms the Terminator by rearranging the circuits in the back of his head.
- NES, February 1992. It opens with you beating up truckers for a motorbike. The bike chase only exists on the NES; the Master System and Game Gear versions dropped it.
- SNES and Genesis, 1993. Eight locations from the film, from the roadside bar to Cyberdyne, ending with the T-1000 at the steel mill. Magazine reviews were mostly negative.
- Chess Wars, 1993. Chess with the T-800 as the white king, Sarah as the queen and two Miles Dysons as knights. Computer Gaming World said it crashed so often they never finished a game.
RoboCop Versus The Terminator (December 1993) sits on its own, based on a 1992 comic. You play RoboCop. Lead designer John Botti said the licence cost 2 million dollars, and EGM called the Genesis version the bloodiest game of the year.
1992-1996: four Bethesda shooters, two of them with Todd Howard on the team
Bethesda kept the licence after its first game and made four more, all for DOS and all set in the future war. The Terminator 2029 (1992) drops you into Los Angeles after the nuclear strikes of 1997 as a Resistance soldier in ACE armour, with briefings from John Connor's headquarters. The Terminator: Rampage (December 1993) is 32 floors of the Cyberdyne building and a V-TEC PPC gun you assemble from parts. Bethesda has claimed Rampage influenced the development of Doom. There is no way to check that, so treat it as Bethesda's own story.
The Terminator: Future Shock came out in December 1995 with Todd Howard as producer, the same Todd Howard who later made Skyrim. Bethesda put more than 3 million dollars into its XnGine engine, and Future Shock ended up as one of the first shooters with fully textured 3D and mouselook. Quake arrived about six months later. SkyNET (16 November 1996) was planned as a multiplayer add-on for Future Shock and shipped as a standalone game with SVGA and deathmatch; Howard is among its designers too.
![Terminator Future Shock Intro+Gameplay [HD]](https://framesgames.com/wp-content/uploads/yt-covers/pBNSThWSZu4.jpg.webp)
The video loads from YouTube (Google) when you press play. Privacy policyYou cannot buy any of Bethesda's five Terminator games on Steam or GOG today. Old discs and DOSBox are all that is left.
2002-2004: three Atari games on PS2 and Xbox, scored from 25 to 68
The Terminator: Dawn of Fate (17 September 2002) from Paradigm Entertainment is a prequel to the first two films. You play humans, Kyle Reese, Catherine Luna and Justin Perry, and it ends with Reese being sent back to 1984. Fear Factory is on the soundtrack. Metacritic: 58 on PS2, 53 on Xbox.
A year later Black Ops Entertainment released Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (11 November 2003), a first-person shooter where you are the T-850. The GameCube version was cancelled, critics said the game felt rushed, and it scored 38 on PS2 and 35 on Xbox. Three weeks later the PC got Terminator 3: War of the Machines from Hungarian studio Clever's Games, an online shooter for humans or machines. Reviewers compared it to Battlefield 1942, unfavourably, and its 25 is the lowest score in the series.
Paradigm made up for it a year later. Terminator 3: The Redemption (9 September 2004) is 14 levels of third-person action as the T-850, and you can fight with road signs ripped out of the ground. GameSpot said the "Redemption" in the title turned out to be fitting. It scored 68 on PS2 and GameCube, the best of the Atari era.
The video loads from YouTube (Google) when you press play. Privacy policyMeanwhile the Terminator lived on feature phones: The Terminator (2003) and The Terminator: I'm Back! (2004) from In-Fusio, plus Kiloo's platformer Terminator Revenge (2006), where you are the Terminator stopping scientists from experimenting on machine remains.
2009: Salvation without Christian Bale, and GRIN's last game
Terminator Salvation came out on 19 May 2009 on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. It was made by Swedish studio GRIN with help from Fatshark, and it turned out to be GRIN's last game. You play John Connor, but Christian Bale refused to lend his voice and likeness, so Connor is voiced by Gideon Emery. It is set in 2016, between the third and fourth films.
The video loads from YouTube (Google) when you press play. Privacy policyThe third-person shooter scored 49 on PC, 43 on PS3 and 48 on Xbox 360. It has been pulled from Steam: store page 21080 now redirects to the Steam front page, though the community hub is still up. In 2010 Raw Thrills released a two-player Salvation light-gun cabinet where you reload by pressing a button on the gun's magazine.
2010-2019: phones, cinemas and a VR ride at Dave & Buster's
In the 2010s the big games dried up. Glu's Terminator Genisys: Revolution (June 2015) was a free-to-play shooter for iOS and Android, and some cinemas let the audience aim their phones at the screen and shoot Terminators before the film. Plarium's Terminator Genisys: Future War (18 May 2017) was an MMO strategy game that Pocket Gamer described as one nobody asked for. A mobile strategy game for Dark Fate followed on 18 October 2019.
The rarest game in the series arrived in November 2019. Terminator: Guardian of Fate is a VR attraction found only at Dave & Buster's, around 130 locations in the US, for up to four players in HTC Vive headsets, with Linda Hamilton voicing Sarah Connor. You cannot buy it or play it at home.
2019: Resistance, 60 from critics and 92% from players
Terminator: Resistance from Polish studio Teyon launched on 15 November 2019 in Europe on PC, PS4 and Xbox One, a day earlier on Steam in the US. It has nothing to do with Dark Fate, which hit cinemas a couple of weeks before: this is Los Angeles in 2028-2029, a Resistance fighter called Jacob Rivers, and several endings.
The video loads from YouTube (Google) when you press play. Privacy policyCritics were lukewarm: 60 on PC, 47 on PS4, and IGN gave it 4 out of 10. Players disagreed. On Steam 17,330 of 18,926 reviews are positive, that's 91.6%, and Wikipedia flatly notes that fans rated it much higher. I get both sides. It's a mid-budget shooter with wooden dialogue, but it is the only Terminator game in years that shows the 2029 war in full instead of as a five-minute prologue.
It is still getting attention: an Enhanced version for PS5 on 30 April 2021 and a Complete Edition for Xbox Series X|S on 27 October 2023. A free Infiltrator mode on 5 November 2020 lets you play as the T-800. The Annihilation Line expansion (10 December 2021, $14.99) with Kyle Reese sits at 94.1% positive on Steam. On 22 October 2026, 107 people were playing Resistance on Steam.
2024: Defiance, a strategy game about fighting Legion, with 252 people online
Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance came out on 21 February 2024, PC only. Steam lists Slitherine as developer and publisher, though press reports from the December 2021 announcement say Cats Who Play, the studio behind Syrian Warfare, started it. It is a real-time strategy game set after Judgment Day in the Dark Fate timeline: you command the Founders, former US military, against the AI Legion. Multiplayer adds the Resistance and Legion as factions.
The video loads from YouTube (Google) when you press play. Privacy policyMetacritic 72, 83% positive from 4,573 Steam reviews, and it is the most played game in the series right now: 252 people were in it on 22 October 2026. Expansions keep coming, but each one lands worse than the last:
- We are Legion (10 December 2024, $11.99): a campaign as the machines, 91% positive.
- Uprising (29 July 2025, $9.99): a conquest mode, 61.7%.
- Evolution (22 September 2026, $11.99): a campaign in Canada and the new Rev 6.5, 40.7% and Mixed.
2025: 2D: No Fate, Terminator 2 in pixels and a 79 on Xbox
British studio Bitmap Bureau announced Terminator 2D: No Fate on 27 February 2025 and needed three release dates to ship it. First 31 October, then 26 November (the studio blamed tariffs on parts for the collector's editions), and finally 12 December 2025 on PS5, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC. It retells Terminator 2 as a nineties arcade game, playing as Sarah Connor, the T-800 and future John Connor.
The video loads from YouTube (Google) when you press play. Privacy policyThe clever part is the No Fate system: replay and choose differently, and you unlock other scenes, secret levels and endings. There are six modes, from Story to Boss Rush, with online leaderboards. IGN praised the music and pixel art and criticised the length. The Guardian called it the "least bad Terminator game in a long while", which for this series counts as a compliment.
Scores: 72 on PC, 70 on PS5 and Switch, 79 on Xbox Series X, though that last one is based on five reviews. Steam has it at 84.6% positive from 1,554 reviews, $29.99. Only 8 people were playing on 22 October, which is normal for a short arcade game you finish in an evening and come back to for another ending.
Survivors: announced in 2022, promised for 2024, still no date in 2026
Terminator: Survivors from Nacon Studio Milan is the only new Terminator game in the works, and it has had a rough ride. Open world, survival after Judgment Day, before John Connor's Resistance exists. Here is how the promises changed:
- 7 July 2022. Nacon announces a Terminator survival game, no title yet.
- 29 February 2024. The Survivors name and Steam early access on 24 October 2024, single player and co-op.
- 12 August 2024. Delayed to 2025.
- 16 December 2025. Creative director Marco Ponte posts on Steam: co-op is gone, early access is dropped in favour of a full release, no launch in 2025, no new date.
- 25 February 2026. Nacon announces it has stopped payments and asks the Lille court to open a recovery procedure (redressement judiciaire).
The video loads from YouTube (Google) when you press play. Privacy policyAs of 22 October 2026, Steam lists the game as "To be announced", with no price. The studio's last Steam post is from 27 February 2026. Survivors has not been officially cancelled, and press reports say development continued after the procedure opened. If you're hoping to play it by Christmas, I wouldn't.
Terminator as a guest: 8 confirmed appearances since 2019
Over the last seven years the Terminator has shown up in other people's games more often than in his own. These are confirmed by publisher or store pages:
- Mortal Kombat 11 (2019). The T-800 in his Dark Fate look, a standalone DLC since 15 October 2019, $5.99 on Steam. The easiest way to play as a Terminator today.
- Gears 5 (2019). The Terminator Dark Fate pack: Sarah Connor and a T-800 endoskeleton in multiplayer.
- Ghost Recon Breakpoint (2020). An event from 29 January to 6 February 2020, two story missions with T-800s as enemies.
- Fortnite (2021). The T-800 and Sarah Connor in January 2021.
- Call of Duty: Vanguard and Warzone (2022). T-800 and T-1000 bundles based on T2 in August 2022.
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Warzone (2025). A Season 2 event from 6 to 20 February 2025.
- Mortal Kombat 1 (2025). The T-1000 in the Khaos Reigns expansion, out for everyone on 25 March 2025, $7.99 on Steam.
- Call of Duty: Mobile (2026). Season 7, "Terminated", with the T-800 and T-1000.
Press reports also have the Terminator as a WWE 2K16 pre-order bonus and as a hunter in Deathgarden: Bloodharvest, but I couldn't find the publishers' own pages. Dead by Daylight, PUBG and Brawlhalla only have player wish lists, no official announcements.
All 32 Terminator games in order
| Year | Game | Platforms | You play as |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | The Terminator | DOS | Kyle Reese or the Terminator |
| 1991 | Terminator 2: Judgment Day | ZX Spectrum, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, C64, DOS | T-800 |
| 1991 | Terminator 2: Judgment Day (arcade) | arcade, ported as T2: The Arcade Game 1992-1994 | T-800, two-player light gun |
| 1991 | Terminator 2 | Game Boy | John Connor, then the T-800 |
| 1992 | Terminator 2 | NES, Master System, Game Gear (1993) | T-800 |
| 1992 | The Terminator | Mega Drive, Master System, Game Gear | Kyle Reese |
| 1992 | The Terminator | NES | Kyle Reese |
| 1992 | The Terminator 2029 | DOS | Resistance soldier |
| 1993 | The Terminator | Sega CD | Kyle Reese |
| 1993 | The Terminator | SNES | Kyle Reese |
| 1993 | Terminator 2 | SNES, Genesis | T-800 |
| 1993 | Terminator 2: Judgment Day - Chess Wars | DOS | chess |
| 1993 | RoboCop Versus The Terminator | Genesis, SNES, Master System, Game Gear, Game Boy | RoboCop |
| 1993 | The Terminator: Rampage | DOS | Resistance soldier |
| 1995 | The Terminator: Future Shock | DOS | Resistance soldier |
| 1996 | SkyNET | DOS | Resistance soldier |
| 2002 | The Terminator: Dawn of Fate | PS2, Xbox | Kyle Reese and squad |
| 2003 | The Terminator | phones (Java) | not stated |
| 2003 | Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines | PS2, Xbox, GBA | T-850 |
| 2003 | Terminator 3: War of the Machines | PC | humans or machines |
| 2004 | Terminator 3: The Redemption | PS2, Xbox, GameCube | T-850 |
| 2004 | The Terminator: I'm Back! | phones (Java) | not stated |
| 2006 | Terminator Revenge | phones (Java) | the Terminator |
| 2009 | Terminator Salvation | PC, PS3, Xbox 360, iOS | John Connor |
| 2010 | Terminator Salvation (arcade) | arcade | Resistance fighters, two players |
| 2015 | Terminator Genisys: Revolution | iOS, Android | humans |
| 2017 | Terminator Genisys: Future War | iOS, Android | human or machine commander |
| 2019 | Terminator: Dark Fate (mobile) | iOS, Android | Resistance commander |
| 2019 | Terminator: Guardian of Fate | VR at Dave & Buster's | humans, up to four |
| 2019 | Terminator: Resistance | PC, PS4, Xbox One, PS5 (2021), Xbox Series (2023) | Jacob Rivers, T-800 in Infiltrator |
| 2024 | Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance | PC | Founders commander |
| 2025 | Terminator 2D: No Fate | PC, PS5, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series | Sarah, T-800, John |
How we counted: one game on several platforms is one row, different games with the same name on different systems are separate rows, the way Wikipedia lists them. Pinball tables, an online slot, DLC, cancelled games, guest appearances and the undated Survivors are left out.
Scores and reviews in numbers
The 1991-1996 games have no Metacritic pages because they predate the site, so the chart starts in 2002. Take the five-review scores (2D: No Fate and Resistance on Xbox Series X) with a pinch of salt: one review moves them by several points.
These are two different scales, a critic score and a share of happy buyers, so the bars aren't directly comparable. Still, Resistance's 32-point gap is hard to miss.
Where to start in 2026
Three of the 32 games are on sale digitally, plus the guest DLC. All of Bethesda's classics, the Atari games and Salvation only exist on disc now. Pick by what you're after:
- The future war, first person. Terminator: Resistance, $39.99 on Steam and GOG. Start here if the 2029 scenes were your favourite part of the films.
- Terminator 2 in one evening. Terminator 2D: No Fate, $29.99 on Steam and on every current console. Play it twice, the second ending is worth it.
- Strategy. Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance, $39.99 on Steam, $27.99 on GOG on sale when we checked. The base game is a safe buy; I'd skip the Evolution expansion for now.
- Just punching people as the T-800. The Mortal Kombat 11 DLC, $5.99.
The other eighties monsters are covered too: every Predator game and every Alien game.
Sources
Games list: Wikipedia, List of Terminator video games, with details from the game articles: The Terminator (DOS), T2 Arcade, Terminator 2 (Game Boy), RoboCop Versus The Terminator, Rampage, Future Shock, SkyNET, Dawn of Fate, T3: The Redemption, Terminator Salvation, Terminator: Resistance, Terminator 2D: No Fate. The cancelled Sunsoft game: Kotaku.
Steam: Resistance, Annihilation Line, Defiance, Evolution, 2D: No Fate, 2D: No Fate delay, Defiance on GOG, PCGamingWiki on Salvation. Reviews, prices and player counts taken on 22.10.2026.
Survivors: Steam, IGN, 2022 announcement, Polygon, 2024 date, delay, 12.08.2024, post of 16.12.2025, AFJV on Nacon's court procedure.
Guest appearances: Mortal Kombat 11 T-800, Gears 5, Xbox Wire, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Ubisoft, Fortnite, PC Gamer, Call of Duty 2022, Black Ops 6, Season 2, Mortal Kombat 1 T-1000, Call of Duty: Mobile, WWE 2K16, GamesRadar.
Scores: Metacritic per platform page on 22.10.2026, IGN on 2D: No Fate, The Guardian on 2D: No Fate. Official promo shots of Dawn of Fate, T3: The Redemption, Salvation and Future Shock and the DOS screenshots come from the MobyGames catalogue, newer games from Steam. Gameplay videos recorded by players on YouTube, the 2D: No Fate and Survivors trailers from the PlayStation and GameSpot channels.
