Terminator: Resistance Enhanced Review

Terminator: Resistance Enhanced understands the part of the films I wanted to spend more time in: the future war. Exploring its ruined streets gave me a welcome Fallout-like feeling, with supplies to scavenge and survivors trying to make a life beneath the machines. It is a straightforward shooter with light role-playing systems, but that simplicity helps it stay focused on the setting instead of burying the adventure under menus.

You play Jacob Rivers, a resistance fighter caught in a conflict where the machines have an obvious advantage. The maps leave room to search abandoned buildings and take detours between objectives. That space matters: seeing what remains of an ordinary home gives the war more weight than simply running from one gunfight to another. The world is small enough to learn without needing to turn every trip into a lengthy expedition.

The early weapons are useful against smaller machines, but they are not a reliable answer to a T-800. Avoiding its patrol or using the environment becomes more important until plasma weapons are available later. That change in equipment affects the mood of the campaign: a machine that initially feels like something to escape eventually becomes an enemy you can confront. It is a simple progression that fits the future-war setting.

Scavenging gives the future-war setting a practical purpose. Scrap and other materials can be used to make supplies such as ammunition, medical items and lockpicks, while stealth offers a way around some dangerous encounters. The systems are straightforward rather than particularly deep, but searching ruined areas fits the idea of a resistance fighter making do with whatever is available.

Conversations provide a little more room to influence the journey than a straight corridor shooter would. People at the resistance shelter offer side jobs, and some dialogue choices affect relationships and later events. The maps also allow detours and alternative routes, including vents and breakable walls. They are modest systems, but they help the world feel inhabited rather than just a succession of firing ranges.

The world is not packed with complicated systems, and I think that helps it. There is enough to do and enough to find to make the exploration worthwhile, but it does not keep adding mechanics until the game becomes a chore to manage. It gives you room to enjoy the setting and the story without needing to learn a sprawling set of rules. That balance makes the game approachable, even if it is not particularly deep.

The limitations are easier to notice when the atmosphere stops doing the work. The systems are not especially deep, and the adventure does not have the polish or ambition of the biggest shooters. I still liked how little resistance there was between me and the parts I wanted to enjoy. Searching another ruined building or helping someone at the shelter fits the fiction, even when the activity itself is simple.

The conversations also give supplies a human context. Helping people at the shelter is more interesting when a job belongs to someone trying to survive, rather than arriving as another icon on a map. Choices can affect relationships and later events, giving the light role-playing side some consequence without making it the centre of every encounter. I liked that the game could return to a conversation after a tense trip outside. It provides a smaller view of the war alongside the machines and ruined streets.

Enhanced is the PS5 edition, with faster loading, visual improvements and DualSense support. It also includes Infiltrator Mode, which puts you in control of a T-800 hunting the resistance. That reversal is a useful companion to a campaign built around being the vulnerable one. The appeal of the main story remains the same: gradually acquiring the equipment to stand your ground against something you initially had every reason to avoid.