Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance News

Hi everybody. Mark here again, Senior Producer on Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance. Looking at my watch, we are only hours away from the release of the new DLC, “We Are Legion”. I cannot tell you how excited I am for it to be released so that you can play as Legion, and control its machine hordes against humanity!

As mentioned in an earlier Dev Diary, the storyline in “We Are Legion” follows on from the story in the main game. So, I’m aware that there may be a bunch of players who haven’t completed the full campaign, with Alex Church and T-Force. As the DLC picks up threads from that story, I’ve decided that this Dev Diary is going to be a short story recap of the first campaign, so that, if you have completed it, there is a quick refresh for your memory, and if you haven’t completed the first campaign, this will catch you up (though, I would always suggest finishing the story in the main campaign to get the most out of the new DLC).

And of course, there will be spoilers below.

The game begins in Atlanta, one month after Judgment Day in the Dark Fate timeline. The city is destroyed, and Legion’s machine forces are overwhelming the last remnants of the US military. A police officer, Officer Stevens, takes it upon himself to save some surviving civilians, and in doing so, help steer the remnants of the army in a retreat. At the end of this prequel mission, Stevens is brought into the remnants of the army by a high ranking Military officer, who informs Stevens that ‘the government, the president, everyone, has gone’, and that they must build something new (more from this military officer later).

We next see Stevens 10 years later, in the fight against Legion. Now a Major in the Founders force, a faction composed of the remnants of the US military. Major Stevens is bringing Lieutenant Alex Church (our main protagonist) to a Founder’s outpost for one of his first commanding roles. What follows includes a Legion convoy with human prisoners, Church making the decision to return to the Founder’s base, Haven, with the prisoners, and a subsequent attack by Legion, with Haven base ultimately being lost.

This leaves Church and his small team of Founder survivors cast into the wasteland, with Legion hot on their trail. With manpower low, the team, nicknamed ‘T-Force’, start to make an allegiances with The Movement, made up of a militia from the civilian survivors who have banded together to fight back against the Machines.

During this period, T-Force also meets ‘The Integrators’, a cult of humans that worship all things technology, to the point of speaking and acting like machines. They see the way of the Machine to be the true way forwards. As a faction, they scavenge technology and produce hi-tech weaponry and equipment, often splicing human and Legion tech together to make hybrid weapons and vehicles. Partly nomadic, there are Integrator settlements scattered around the south of the US.

T-Force’s fight continues, alongside The Movement through New Mexico, and into Mexico itself, to take on the Cartel gangs who seem to be working with Legion, providing ‘slaves’ and humans for the Machines, for an unknown purpose. After destroying the Cartel stronghold at Chihuahua, Mexico, and helping a slave uprising there, T-Force return to the US, to Texas, helping the inhabitants of Vega against Marauder gangs and onto Oklahoma City, the “Meat Grinder”, where the remnants of a Founders force that had been decimated in Oklahoma City exist. A huge battle ensues against Legion, who has a factory base that must be destroyed.

Once Oklahoma City has been cleared of Legion, T-Force head to Fort Worth, Texas, where they discover unsettling reports about humans being ‘harvested’ and new Legion technological advancements at a huge Legion research and production facility at Galveston, Texas.

After a mission to Mount Taylor, where Church discovers human prisoners that have been tortured and studied, and in many cases, skinned alive to help create a new form of ‘Infiltrator’ unit, an early attempt to replicate a human, Church returns to the Founders to impart all the information on technology and human harvesting that they have discovered.

The Founders is led by Actual, the Military Officer from the very first mission, who has helped form the Founders. Very interested in the information about the technology, he brings Church and T-Force back into the Founders and begins to formulate a plan to destroy the production facility at Galveston.

Preparing to take on Legion at Galveston, T-Force approaches the Integrators for support. The integrators offer a mission to Church, to infiltrate the city of Midlands, Texas to capture some unknown technology. Reports of Legion forces in Midlands acting strangely prove correct, as Church finds Legion units fighting each other for some strange reason.

In the heart of Midlands, Church discovers ‘The Prototype’, a huge, spider-like monstrosity of a machine that seems to pre-date Judgment Day, and is not considered to be part of Legion's forces. Finally destroying this Prototype, and fighting off hordes of Legion units that attack Midland now that the Prototype has been destroyed, the Integrators come in and take the data and technology from the Prototype, and leave for their settlement.

Church makes the decision to infiltrate the Integrator settlement at Taos, and steal the new technology that seems to make Legion forces fight against each other. Helped by his Movement allies, Church is able to steal this technology, that the Integrators have labelled ‘Digital Storm’, Church leaves the Integrator settlement (after a fight) and, with the initial help of the Founders, moves to Galveston to try to destroy the Galveston facility.

During the battle of Galveston, Church unleashes ‘Digital Storm’, which turns Legion units nearby to fight against other Legion units. During the battle, Actual, the leader of the Founders, focuses on gaining access to the new Legion technology, rather than, as Church believed was the plan, to destroy it.

As the battle of Galveston rages, once Actual has the technology he wanted, he takes the new technology, and leaves Church and T-Force high and dry, to fend for themselves against the continuing horde of Legion.

T-Force only manages to survive by various allies from earlier in the campaign appearing to help in resisting the Legion forces. With the help of these allies, Church and T-Force turn the battle into a victory, and flood and destroy the Legion facility. The battle of Galveston is won.
Church, now standing alone from the Founders once more, sees that the only way forwards is to unite the various factions of humanity, to resist against Legion. To perhaps form… a Resistance.

So, what of the Digital Storm, a radiation pulse weapon that was discovered by the Integrators, and now held by Church? Where did it come from, who were its creators?
And what of the Integrators, betrayed by Church, technology stolen from them and their settlement recovering from a fight with T-Force

These unknown threads are where we start the new We Are Legion campaign. But from Legion's perspective.

We hope you enjoy bringing some pain to humanity!
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WISHLIST NOW:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3227830/Terminator_Dark_Fate__Defiance_We_are_Legion/

Hello, Mark here again (Senior Producer on the game), back with the next Developer Diary for Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance, with the new “We Are Legion” DLC just a few weeks away from release. As you can imagine, we are all busy polishing the various missions, and very excited to almost be at the point where you can play the new levels.



The first diary last month answered a number of questions that some of the community posed, and this one follows up with further answers to even more questions.

So, let’s get hear some of the questions you asked.

I loved the challenge, playing as the “underdog” with T-Force, vs Legion. How will the DLC make playing Legion challenging with them being ‘realistically’ more powerful than other factions? Playing as Legion and not just relying on numbers or technical superpower
Well, there are times where you do get that feeling of ‘over whelming the humans’ with sheer numbers of forces, especially on the easier difficulty levels. Playing on the lowest difficulty level, I find that there is an element of more traditional ‘group and attack in force’ RTS tactics. This does change on the higher difficulty settings though.
But, even with a large, powerful Legion force, there are more advanced human adversaries that Legion fight against. You have probably seen from the shared playthrough of Mission 3 that there is a mission where you are attacking an Integrator camp, with their more advanced weaponry. And now, after Galveston, the Founders have more advanced weaponry (as you saw through the base game with basic vehicles being upgraded with plasma cannons and similar). So, even if you are fighting humans, their tech has been upgraded for a more difficult fight.

How will the units be transferred from mission to mission? Will there be supply factors as per the base game, or something else? What factors will influence the “Reserve” points during missions?
The player has a small core army that is taken from mission to mission in a Carrier. This can be customized and changed between missions. Alongside this, there are the research abilities and the blueprints functionality that I explained in the last dev diary.
There are also Production units that Legion will provide at given points during a battle, depending on certain criteria. These are gained from ‘energy’ that you gain from performing various mission objectives. So for example, if you capture an Integrator power center, you may be given 5000 units to purchase more Legion reinforcements during the battle.

Will the new Legion campaign be similarly linear as the base one or more open ended with different possible endgame outcomes?
The original campaign had a few branches and decisions that ultimately impacted on the final few battles, especially with the final battle at Galveston, dictating which ally forces you received.
There are less branching opportunities in “We Are Legion” when it comes to campaign choices. There are some decisions that you will make that impact the individual missions but not impact later missions.
There is still the whole new research and upgrade unit options that ultimately gives a different gameplay feel depending on your army upgrade decisions, that may have a similar impact later in the game, similar to how in the first campaign, army characters surviving (or not) had an impact later (Big Bob, Kondo, etc).

Which new things do you (devs) find most exciting in the DLC?
I am personally excited about finally answering some elements of the story that were set up in the first campaign. I read a lot (well, all) of the community discussions and it’s great seeing players questioning character motives, what discovered tech was, what are the motives of the Integrators, what the huge prototypes discovered in the game may mean. So, it’s exciting from a story point of view to be able to answer some of those questions and to build on the lore of the Dark Fate Universe.

I have a question regarding the DLC trailer. Who are Legion fighting near the Lincoln monument? Do they have anything to do with the founders in Texas? How big is the founder's faction if they fight in both Texas and Washington? Is the founders leader we know the only leader of the faction or are there others? Does the DLC take place before the main campaign or is it something like a continuation?
The forces seen in the DLC trailer are Founder units. The lore that was written for the Founders was more detailed and in depth than what was seen in the original campaign. We have a history written (that I am sure we’ll share in an upcoming diary) about how the founders came to be, where they’re based, and what their fundamental motives are. I know that their background showed that they were actually based in the North East of the US, and the Southern forces were outposts as they spread into the south. So, perhaps, we haven’t met the main force of Founders just yet!
And as for the Founder leader (Actual) that you meet in the first campaign, he isn’t the only leader. And maybe, just maybe, we may answer some questions about him in the new DLC too!

Will the Integrators be the ones to help send the super soldier (Grace in the movie) to the past?
My take on it is that the ‘Resistance’ that is starting to form from the first game is a coming together of all the factions of humanity, fighting back against Legion. And it’s likely this Resistance that ultimately sends Grace back to help Dani Ramos in the movie (a Resistance that is led in part by Dani Ramos in the movie). So I guess there is still the question, do the Integrators help within the Resistance? Well, we shall have to see.

Can a Legion tank be armed with 2 rail guns in the DLC?
The rail gun is not available to attach to a Legion tank in the DLC. Sorry.

Are we going to see Balzano in the new DLC? I would like to know more about the misadventures of that character.
There are returning characters from the first campaign in the new “We Are Legion” DLC. I can confirm though, that Balzano, unfortunately, is not one of them.

How do you approach exploring Legion as a Character?
This was one of the most challenging parts of the new story, peeking behind the curtain of the ‘Big Bad’. Legion is written to be very logical, methodical, machine-like. However, we did think that a whole campaign playing as that logical entity may not be as exciting as it could be, so, as I mentioned in the earlier diary, we have introduced some human element to the story. As well as not always playing as the Legion Command core, but elements of it, so there is more of a ‘dialogue’ available. I’d like to say more, but, you know, spoilers…

Well, we are close to the release and so you will hopefully be playing “We Are Legion” very soon. As I mentioned before, I am always reading comments and feedback on the official discord channel, and will always try to answer your questions where I can. So please do join us there. Until the next time.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3227830/Terminator_Dark_Fate__Defiance_We_are_Legion/

December 10th is just around the corner, and we can't wait for you to experience the "We Are Legion" DLC.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3227830/Terminator_Dark_Fate__Defiance_We_are_Legion/

To celebrate the launch of the first DLC for Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance, we're gearing up for the Slitherine Next event, packed with exciting content about the game and much more.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1839950/Terminator_Dark_Fate__Defiance/

During the event, we'll share details about next year's content, upcoming DLCs, and of course, the official release of "We Are Legion".

Slitherine Next is coming soon—stay tuned and mark your calendars.

https://www.youtube.com/live/bNMPY51noiw

Hi there. I’m Mark, the Senior Producer on Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance and here’s the second part of Dev Diary #1 https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1839950/view/4483989494757851439

Does this campaign follow the T-Force Story, or is it separate?
Yes it does follow the events that occurred in the main game (which is why, anybody who has completed the first story may get more out of it than if you haven’t finished the main story, though we do give enough ‘backstory’ for any players starting the DLC without completing the main game).
We see the ongoing story from a different perspective, and we hopefully answer a few questions that were remaining from the first story too. (Did somebody say Prototype?)
And will we see any returning characters from the main game? Well, that would be telling….. (but yes, we do!).

Is the new Campaign set in the same locations as the first campaign?
As the story is continuing, we do begin in some very familiar locations. A lot of the new story does occur around the southern US states but as anybody would have seen in the announcement trailer and free wallpaper, we also are moving to some other locations in the US too, that are outside of the initial US map we provided.


Are there any new Multiplayer or Skirmish Maps with the DLC?
For the DLC, there won’t be additional maps given for Skirmish or MP. But, as we move into the new year, we will continue adding campaign maps into the Skirmish and Multiplayer lists as we have done through 2024. So, expect to see maps from the DLC appear in Skirmish and MP updates throughout 2025.
There are also some new features that will also find their way eventually into Skirmish & Multiplayer. For example, the army customisation that I mentioned above may appear in some form (setting up your army before a battle!).


Is there new music?
There have been new, Legion themed tracks produced. There are 12 new tracks in the DLC, to get you into the ‘Legion vibe’.

What were the difficulties with coming up with characters for the machines when they have been mostly "Shoot first ask questions never" throughout the franchise?
This was definitely a challenge. We were aware that if the whole campaign was an emotionless machine speaking to you in binary, it may become frustrating. So, there are a couple of ‘human’ elements injected into the story, alongside Legion. So whilst you are ‘Playing Legion’, as we’ve seen in the first game, there are times when Legion will call upon human factions to help their cause (Chihuahua for example, or the occasional Founder!! (no spoilers)). So, missions will not just be Legion speaking to you like an angry answer machine.

I hope that you have many more questions and we would love to answer them. So, if you want to learn more, there is a strong community on the official discord channel where I’m always about answering your questions (unless Marketing sends a kill-bot after me to shut me up).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3227830/Terminator_Dark_Fate__Defiance_We_are_Legion/