The blizzard begins to clear. Through the swirling snow, dark shapes emerge at speed. Then they break into a sprint.
The new Revs.
Their bladed fingers flex as they race across the frozen ground towards your position. Weapons open fire, desperate to stop them before they reach the line. But they keep coming, weaving through the storm with terrifying speed. As they close in, the sound of their claws cutting through the air becomes unmistakable.
Then they hit.
In seconds, human fighters are torn apart as the new Legion threat rips through the battlefield.
Welcome to the Resistance.
The last Dev Diary #1 looked at the story so far, and took a brief look at the upcoming DLC’s story. This Dev Diary is going to look a bit closer at the new melee and augmentation functionality, and give an early look at some of the new units in the game.
Rippers
The new Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance: Evolution DLC is nearing release and we wanted to give you a first look at the new Evolved Revs in action. The Rev 6.5 “Rippers” are deadly, fast moving, bladed Terminators. With a fast sprint and leap, they can tear through human lines, taking down unit after unit until they are stopped.
Even vehicles are not safe, as they have the ability to leap aboard and break through armor with their razor sharp blades, smashing through to the crew inside.
Here is the first look at the Rev 6.5 Rippers in action:
Firepower will eventually halt the attack, but I have seen in the new DLC a unit of Rippers cut through 2 human units and a light platform emplacement before they were destroyed by a Bradley tank (manned by good old Big Bob!).
Augmented Humans
To counteract the new Rev 6.5 Rippers, the Resistance gains new technology allowing them to augment human troops, as seen with Grace in the Terminator: Dark Fate movie. This gives increased melee attack, speed and armor, allowing them to face off with Terminator units, even the Rev 6.5’s.
Augmentation is applied through a Training Ability in the army management screen, where units ‘Volunteer’ to be augmented. This removes existing Training Abilities, but heavily improves the unit's stats. It also unlocks additional ‘Augmentation Kits’ slots to customize each augmented unit. For example, add an additional Stamina Augmentation Kit for further increased armor and the ability to carry nearly double ammunition. Or a Crew Augmentation Kit, to allow further increased vehicle speed and control. Weapons and unit type skills are still retained, so an Augmented Sniper unit is still a sniper unit. We hope this gives you a great deal of customisation options, with different units using different weapons having varying augmentation set ups.
Here is an example of an Augmented unit attacking a Rev 1 Homonculi. As you can see, they have an initial ‘charge’ ability (similar to the Rev 6’s) to charge them into melee.
Flame Tank
To help Alex Church and the Resistance, a new tank is available during the campaign, the Leopard C2A1, a Canadian Main Battle Tank, carrying a large Flamethrower and Plasma M20. The Flamethrower is specifically useful against humans (of which you must fight in the new campaign), whilst the Plasma M20 is particularly useful against any vehicles.
Here it is in action.
Where is the DLC?
Probably the most asked question about the new DLC is, “When is it being released?”
A lot of players have been asking about the release date, having been delayed a couple of times from when it was originally announced. I have personally said Q2 2026 for the past few months, aiming for the end of June. However, we are going to miss that slightly, and unfortunately have to push into early Q3, around July or August. We are literally polishing the missions at the moment, but with the polish and the voice over work that is underway, getting back some of the original actors from the early game, and building in some beta testing time, has meant another slight delay.
I know this may upset some people who were expecting it in June, but we are making sure that the update is polished and fun. (And, if you watch out for Beta announcements over the next couple of weeks, you may get access to play slightly earlier too).
Community Questions
As we often do with the dev diaries, we like to get questions from the player community, and over on the Official Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance discord channel of which I will try to answer. So, a number of questions have been asked.
Here goes:
From Nelson
What are the things you are most excited about seeing players react to? What has you most concerned?
Mark:
Well, I am very excited about the new Rev melee functionality. The new DLC was built around this new unit type and new melee functionality and improvement, both in story and functionality. I was blown away seeing the Revs leaping onto a moving vehicle and begin ripping it apart. The initial plan wasn’t to have them attacking vehicles, but I remember when the team mentioned “oh, and we may look to get them leaping onto and attacking vehicles, ripping them apart”, I was like “Oh, yes please, if you can, that would look awesome!”
My main concern as always is player expectation. I see player comments such as “I hope there is more than 3 - 4 days worth of play”. The new DLC is comparable to the “We Are Legion” DLC released earlier in length, with a similar amount of missions. Whenever you release a new game or DLC, you just hope players enjoy it.
From DAMIR
Is there going to be a DLC in which the integrators will get a flying vehicle/unit
Be it a advanced heli or a legions HK aerial they took/hacked and modified for their use
Mark:
Well, the Integrators are quite prevalent and playable in the new Evolution DLC allowing the player to control them (with the return of Silas from We Are Legion DLC!). But there is no additional Integrator aerial unit, but a great idea that will be put to the team for future DLC. I know players cry out for more flying units.
From Nikita
Will the upgrade / Promotion system be further expanded on?
Mark:
As I mentioned above, there is now another level of ability upgrades with augmentations available. I believe that a unit needs to have upgraded to at least an Expert to have the option of augmentation too.
From Xul:
Can the augmented humans board and rip apart vehicles?
Mark:
No, augmented people have weapons. They can only deal with vehicles with these weapons.
Is there going to be a hand-held flamethrower usable by infantry, or is it just mounted on vehicles?
Mark:
The flamethrower will be found on only one tank—the Leopard. It's a unique weapon, and like the railgun in the original campaign, it will be in very limited supply.
Does augmenting humans result in a higher supply upkeep cost? As in the movie I think they needed to eat a lot more than regular humans.
Mark:
Yes, they do. Roughly double the cost, to mirror the improved functionality these augmented units provide.
From sdasd:
Will the new units be back-ported to any of the older content? especially uprising
Mark:
Not at release. The issue is, retro-fitting older content with new content means a total re-work and re-balance of that older content, with a huge chance of breaking what has been released. Our plan is in the near future, there will be some ‘cross over’ content released that will incorporate all the new updated functionality and new units.
From NaturalIdiot97:
Will the augmented soldiers receive specialised weapons similar to what we see in the movie?
Mark:
No, they retain the weaponry that they had at the time, and can be swapped out as normal too.
I was just playing the new DLC, and was trying out some new combinations, with an augmented unit deploying smoke, and then running through the smoke into melee. It was quite brutal.
How will the augmented soldiers interact with vehicles? Will there be any special effects or requirements?
Mark:
It is possible to provide additional vehicle augmentation skills, to increase their usage of vehicles.
How will the events of the next dlc influence the progression/direction of the story
Mark:
There is an on-going story being told, using characters from the main game and earlier DLC’s. We want to keep everything tied together as we move forward too. So, we will be seeing characters move into later DLC’s too.
Will we have any visitors from other overseas countries trying to aid in the battle against the machines
Mark:
Not yet.
I would like to say a big thanks to all the community that provided questions for this dev diary. Questions are always being asked (and usually answered) on the official discord channel so do check it out if you want to ask me something directly. We also continually read all Steam Discussion comments and try to answer where possible.
"The blizzard has cleared, and the snow is stained with the blood of fallen humans. The Rippers have moved on through the lines, causing mayhem and death on their path.
It is time to come forward and volunteer for augmentation soldier. You are the future, the evolution of this Resistance against the machine threat.
For the Resistance!!"
