While neither games have release dates, and technically Stargate: Timekeepers was teased a while ago, the two games got their real debuts just now as Slitherine released gameplay trailers for the former and gameplay teasers and a teaser trailer for Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance.
Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance is a large scale RTS game set in the future timeline of the Terminator series, where players control the human resistance in a desperate war not only against Legion, who controls Skynet forces in this timeline, but also hostile human factions not part of the resistance itself. Unfortunately tethered to one of the… less liked Terminator films and its deviant timeline, Defiance still has the makings of a great game and hopefully won’t be marked by the same quality as the film it is attached to, undoubtedly for marketing reasons. Legion is still fighting a very active war against human forces, so things aren’t entirely one-sided. Based on what so-far limited footage has been shown off by the developers, Defiance will feature large battles on maps encompassing major cities. A brief video giving us an overview of a mission set in a largely ruined Oklahoma City present a battle with seemingly equally matched armies - though the machine forces seem to have better fortified bases. We also got to see some screenshots that offer a more accurate representation of what moment to moment gameplay will be like: missions will have multiple objectives, and the game features a fairly spartan UI with a minimap being the dominant interface element, leaving the action unobscured. Stargate: Timekeepers is a different beast, though still an RTS game. Focused on smaller-scale skirmishes, in gives players control of a single SG team instead of armies and bases. Tactics-focused missions with a focus on story will take players through a campaign that takes place near the start of the events of SG-1’s seventh season. Commander Eva McCain will lead her SG team in fights against the forces of the Goa’uld system lords Anubis and Moloc, while also negotiating an alliance with the alien Unas species. Lining up with the legendary TV show’s storyline at this point, the Jaffa faction is already revolting against the Goa’uld, and we’ll be helping them too. Across 14 campaign missions, Stargate: Timekeepers will involve a lot of typical shenanigans paying homage to the show’s episodes, with all kinds of callbacks to events, locations and technology. Aside of meeting factions and characters from the screen, there will also be some time-loop story elements (probably alluded to by the title) and other callbacks to the source material. Additionally, Slitherine revealed that the story can have multiple outcomes. How exactly these can be triggered or what choices the player will make during the course of the campaign are anyone’s guess at this point, but we imagine we’ll learn more as release closes in - whenever that is. Neither Stargate: Timekeepers nor Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance have release dates yet. That said, the games must be fairly far along in development considering the amount and completeness of gameplay footage that’s already been shown off. Between the upcoming Dune RTS, these two games and Starship Troopers - Terran Command that Slitherine also showed off earlier, fans of retro sci-fi classics and strategy games are going to eat well in the coming months!
