Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance: We are Legion - Dev Diary #3

[MarcoT.]

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!