Terminator 2D: NO FATE Review

Timeless cool

I saw Terminator 2: Judgment Day at far too young an age.

I’m pretty sure we taped it from what was probably its first Australian TV airing back when I was about six years old and I instantly became obsessed. I begged my mum to get me a real leather jacket that we miraculously found in kids-size at a second-hand shop, which she did, and for probably about a year I would never want to leave the house without wearing both it and the pair of officially licensed Terminator 2 sunglasses I ended up getting also.

For the past few months I’ve actually been living back down in that same house I grew up and first saw Terminator 2 in, and earlier this week I actually rediscovered those very sunglasses. 

Yeah, they're real.

I guess I’ve been in a bit of a rose-tinted nostalgia hole lately; somewhat mythologizing my past while ignoring the actual reality of it, which happens to be exactly where Terminator 2D: NO FATE positions itself, funnily enough.

Publisher: Reef Entertainment

Developer: Bitmap Bureau

Platform: Played on PC and Steam Deck

Availability: Released December 12, 2025 on PS4/5, Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One, Windows PC, Nintendo Switch.

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The games marketing copy posits that ‘the guiding principle of its development was to make the kind of game that could’ve come out alongside the movie’, which of course entirely ignores the fact that there was a glut of official T2 video games released back then.

Given that the central conceit of the Terminator franchise is revisiting the past in order to deliver a brighter today, I can’t help but admire the hell out of how holistically the developers and publisher have presented this throughline.

Terminator 2D: NO FATE plays like a highlights package of every memorable side-scrolling action game of the early 90s. Each level features a timer that ticks down towards a game over, and every object you smash and every enemy you defeat adds points to your score. A full run from start to finish will only take you around 40 minutes, but it encourages you to push for higher scores, quicker times, and to try higher difficulties. After finishing the game once you unlock the ability to make narrative choices in a couple of instances on subsequent runs which unlocks some branching levels that give different endings. 

From the very idea of making the game itself, permeating all the way through its design, and then out the other end to the way it’s being marketed, Terminator 2D: NO FATE delightfully toys with the notion of changing history and our collective senses of rose-tinted nostalgia.

What’s most impressive about Terminator 2D: NO FATE though is how cleverly every one of its iconic scenes have been translated into different game design frameworks from the era and how smoothly they all weave together. The future war segments glimpsed in the film's opening have you playing as adult John Connor in a straight riff on Contra, complete with cartoonish gun power pickups. Sarah Connor’s assaults on Cyberdyne facilities meanwhile are more platforming focused in the style of Acclaim’s many licensed productions of the day. The motorbike and truck chase through the Los Angeles river hilariously becomes a direct riff on the infamous jetbike levels from Battletoads, though far less infuriating and mercifully shorter.

Terminator 2D: NO FATE delightfully toys with the notion of changing history and our collective senses of rose-tinted nostalgia.

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Best of all though is how the ‘I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle’ scene has been adapted.

You’re given control of the titular Terminator itself as it arrives through the time portal to 1995. Unarmed and completely nude, you melee brawl your way into and through the biker bar in a style reminiscent of Golden Axe. As a bunch of dudes with pocket knives and pool cues can’t reasonably harm a hulking death-robot, any hits incurred instead knock 5 seconds off the countdown timer.

I laughed with delight as the Dwight Yoakam song from the film scene played upon entering the bar, too, then absolutely cackled with glee when I smashed the jukebox found in the level and the music switched to George Thorogood’s ‘Bad to the Bone’. Not chiptune interpreted covers either, the actual licensed songs. The fact that each sticks out so much from the rest of Terminator 2D: NO FATE’s wonderfully authentic early 90s video game score made the gag land all the better.

The level culminates with a boss fight against the shotgun-wielding “I can’t let you take the man’s wheels, son” bartender, and beginning-to-end it’s one of my favorite game sequences of the year hands-down.

Terminator 2D: NO FATE lends its own twists to the events of the classic film.

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Every inch of Terminator 2D: NO FATE is drenched in this degree of love and reverence both for its source material as well as for arcade and console games of the early 90s, and every bit of this is communicated wonderfully through play. The fact that they clearly couldn't get Schwarzenegger’s likeness rights is a small shame, but the game just presents so splendidly & feels so damn good to play from start to finish that it doesn't matter. Every subsequent run I took through it was inspired by my enthusiasm to relish in the pleasure of it all once again as much as it was to unlock anything new or chase higher scores.

All that said, though, $30USD feels steep for a game of its scale as beautiful and brilliant as I feel the game is. I’m also swinging back and forth on feeling outraged at the $60USD price tag for the physical edition and laughing at how authentic to the game's entire concept making that choice for a retail release is.

Verdict

Terminator 2D: NO FATE is a masterclass in film-to-video game adaptation. It also feels like something a frighteningly clever machine would devise in order to push every single one of my ‘childhood delight’ buttons. It’s easily one of my favorite games of the year and I’d argue one of the best licensed games ever on top of that. Maybe just keep your eyes peeled for any discount on it.

Image Credits: Jam Walker, Reef Entertainment, and Bitmap Bureau.

Disclosure: We received a free review copy of this product from the publisher.