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Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance
Terminator: Dark Fate – Defiance is not just a game; it's an adrenaline-fueled journey where your strategic prowess decides the fate of mankind against the machines. After the machines took over, the greatest threats may not come from the machines but rather from other human survivors.
In short, Steam reviewers most often praise “Deep tactical resource management” (61 of 104 reviews) and “Challenging, methodical campaigns” (17); the most common complaint is “Unfair difficulty spikes” (15). What reviewers agree on ↓
What players say
Steam review score and the most-helpful voices, which may include critical ones. Score via Steam as of 2026-09-29 · quoted reviews as of 2026-05-13.
What reviewers agree on
61 of the 104 reviews raise this.
“Words fail to match the game's excellence, You have the squad-level management of syrian warfare game, Broken Arrow's Level of detail, And unlimited fun, Skirmish, Deck Management rich with various units, You also have…”
“Recommended (with caveats) I have a serious love/hate relationship with Terminator: Dark Fate Defiance. You can tell the developers didn’t have the resources they needed, but honestly, with what they did have, they’ve…”
“Great game, easy with mods, just as good without, this is a nice game, it is a good game, there is not many other games as good as this one... what the devs need to do now is to Build more expansions and maps to expand,…”
17 of the 104 reviews raise this.
“its hard yes i love the fact that it is just take your time pause the game look around before anything them wire heads be everywhere but just take the time to move your guys around and you will have a victory with…”
“As a long time RTS enjoyer going in without expectations, I really enjoyed Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance. After only playing the demo and seeing how visceral the combat was, I decided to check out the full game, and…”
“one of my favrite rts games i played in a while its hard as hell but really fun and i enjoyed my time with it the soundtrack is really good as well with survivalist being the best in my humble opinion”
11 of the 104 reviews raise this.
“I never thought a $30 game would be THIS GOOD.... WHAT THE HELL?!!? Graphics -- 10/10 Soundtrack -- 10/10 Squad Gameplay -- 11/10 (multiple, equipable weapons, all with ammo on each squad) Survivability Gameplay --…”
“C+ The game is a complicated mess. The story isn't that bad and is interesting to go through especially the Legion DLC. The flaws sadly are in the Story Missions for humans as you run into 3 major issues. 1. Changing…”
“I constantly find myself coming back to this game every so often, and that's not just because of nostalgia for the IP, it's the challenging and methodical gameplay that keeps me coming back. Good campaign, with a story…”
7 of the 104 reviews raise this.
“I love TDF:D because it scratches the same itch that World In Conflict did. It's not perfect, but it's well worth it for the price, I've more had my money's worth of fun. There are some great mods to extend your…”
“got a few hours in this game. love it, only thing id change about this game is that in the campaign loosing helicopters is basically a death sentence and are very hard to replace if at all. id like if they'd retweak the…”
“I constantly find myself coming back to this game every so often, and that's not just because of nostalgia for the IP, it's the challenging and methodical gameplay that keeps me coming back. Good campaign, with a story…”
7 of the 104 reviews raise this.
“Recommended (with caveats) I have a serious love/hate relationship with Terminator: Dark Fate Defiance. You can tell the developers didn’t have the resources they needed, but honestly, with what they did have, they’ve…”
“I never thought a $30 game would be THIS GOOD.... WHAT THE HELL?!!? Graphics -- 10/10 Soundtrack -- 10/10 Squad Gameplay -- 11/10 (multiple, equipable weapons, all with ammo on each squad) Survivability Gameplay --…”
“The game look okay but DAMN WHY ARE EVERYBODY LOBOTOMIZED? Worse AI ever. First mission 181 kills and 1 unit lost... I really feel like wipping ChatGPT. And our AI allies is the same... Why do you charge the enemy like…”
15 of the 104 reviews raise this · 12 of them still recommend the game.
“Single worst pathfinding and unit AI I have ever seen in any game. Mission design is absolutely awful, too, the kinds of missions where you have to know what is going to happen before it happens or you lose. Random…”
“Very fun scenarios but some campaign missions aren't even close to being balanced, which can entirely derail your gameplay.”
“While this is one of my favorite RTSs of all time, I understand why people don’t like it. This game is hard to the point where it is borderline unfair. You will be expected to achieve k/d ratios where you will kill…”
15 of the 104 reviews raise this · 4 of them still recommend the game.
“Single worst pathfinding and unit AI I have ever seen in any game. Mission design is absolutely awful, too, the kinds of missions where you have to know what is going to happen before it happens or you lose. Random…”
“The game has a lot of potential, but the implementation is absolute4 garbage, especially for a dev like slytherine. The major failure points are around the AI and deck building mechanic: - your AI is DUUUUMB. your units…”
“This is a cool game and I'll still play it, but the marketing wasn't honest. They say it's an RTS game, but in reality it plays like an RPG. If you're expecting big battles, stick to skirmish and totally ignore the…”
12 of the 104 reviews raise this · 5 of them still recommend the game.
“Single worst pathfinding and unit AI I have ever seen in any game. Mission design is absolutely awful, too, the kinds of missions where you have to know what is going to happen before it happens or you lose. Random…”
“The game has a lot of potential, but the implementation is absolute4 garbage, especially for a dev like slytherine. The major failure points are around the AI and deck building mechanic: - your AI is DUUUUMB. your units…”
“Interesting idea, but like a lot of people, I got to mission 4 and then ended up with game-breaking bugs. You're think using the IP of Terminator would require some competent coding, but I guess not. 3/10”
10 of the 104 reviews raise this · 7 of them still recommend the game.
“Single worst pathfinding and unit AI I have ever seen in any game. Mission design is absolutely awful, too, the kinds of missions where you have to know what is going to happen before it happens or you lose. Random…”
“Recommended (with caveats) I have a serious love/hate relationship with Terminator: Dark Fate Defiance. You can tell the developers didn’t have the resources they needed, but honestly, with what they did have, they’ve…”
“Despite playing this before on the exact same PC, I cannot get this game to run for the life of me.”
5 of the 104 reviews raise this · 3 of them still recommend the game.
“This is a cool game and I'll still play it, but the marketing wasn't honest. They say it's an RTS game, but in reality it plays like an RPG. If you're expecting big battles, stick to skirmish and totally ignore the…”
“got a few hours in this game. love it, only thing id change about this game is that in the campaign loosing helicopters is basically a death sentence and are very hard to replace if at all. id like if they'd retweak the…”
“While this is one of my favorite RTSs of all time, I understand why people don’t like it. This game is hard to the point where it is borderline unfair. You will be expected to achieve k/d ratios where you will kill…”
Counted across 104 English reviews, sampled to match this game's 83.1% positive rating · as of 2026-05-13
“Great Game, Quick save F5 will be your friend. So many frustrating moments. More sim like than game like. Extremely challenging campaign. Not your typical RTS.”
— a player, Steam review · 81 hrs played“Not a RTS in the traditional sense but more of a RTT with very lite RPG elements. Ran horribly on my older hardware i7 2600K, 16Gb DDR3, GTX 1070. Runs great on new hardware.”
— a player, Steam review · 25 hrs played“I really want to like this game. But it's simply too frustrating. I love the detailed united management (fuel, ammo vehicle repairs), crew training. The survival mechanics and the very limited resource management is a great idea. But the game feels way too punishing and random.…”
— a player, Steam review · 7 hrs playedPlayer activity
Monthly average concurrent players. Live data self-collected from the Steam API · history through 2026-06 via SteamCharts.
Achievement stats
Global completion rates across all Steam players — a data view of how far people actually get. Source: Steam official stats · as of 2026-10-24.
Price tracking
US-region pricing (USD), sampled twice daily by our own tracker since 2026-07-11. Steam prices vary by region — always confirm your local price on Steam.
Regional prices at last sample, in local currency — Steam sets each region's price independently.
Cheapest → most expensive, converted to USD at ECB reference rates (2026-10-23). Relative comparison only.
Latest official news
Developer announcements via the Steam news API — links go to the original posts. More across all games on the news hub.
Update v1.9.1223 - Bug Fixes & Quality of Life
We've just released a new update focused on bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements, mainly for the base game's Skirmish and Multiplayer modes. Check out the full changelog below. v.1.9.1223 Added
Update v1.9.1221
With the latest release of the Evolution DLC, a number of players have been experiencing some issues. Some have been introduced by running mods, or installed mods in the past that still have files pre
Game Update & Mod Compatibility Issues
Hi everyone, Thank you to everyone who has been playing the new Evolution DLC and sending us your feedback and issues. We’re aware that some players have encountered crashes and other issues since the
Evolution | Out Now
Terminator: Dark Fate – Defiance: Evolution is out now for 11.99$. The next chapter of the war takes Lieutenant Church and the Resistance into the frozen territories of Canada. As they strike at Legio
Evolution | Dev Diary #3
The time of Evolution is drawing close! And the release day can be revealed here. The new Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance: Evolution DLC will be released on September 22nd . We hope you join the Resi
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Screenshots
Official Steam store screenshots — click any shot to enlarge.
Facts & details
From the Steam store record, snapshot 2026-05-13.
| Genres | Strategy |
| Player tags | Strategy · Real Time Tactics · RTS · Wargame · 3D · Atmospheric · Artificial Intelligence · Alternate History · Dark · Conspiracy · Destruction · Drama (SteamSpy community voting) |
| Features | Single-player · Multi-player · PvP · Online PvP · Family Sharing |
| Languages | English * , French, German, Spanish - Spain, Dutch, Russian, Simplified Chinese * |
| Achievements | 80 |
| Official site | https://www.slitherine.com/steam |
Minimum system requirements (PC)
Minimum: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system OS: 64-bit Windows 10 Processor: Intel Core i5 or equivalent Memory: 8 GB RAM Graphics: Geforce GTX 750 (2GB) DirectX: Version 11 Storage: 25 GB available space Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Card