THE MAKING OF THE Terminator

By 1992, The Terminator as a blockbuster movie franchise had well and truly taken off. The original film quickly became a financial success eight years prior (despite a mixed critical reaction), Arnold Schwarzenegger continued to cement himself as an impressive body-builder-turned-Hollywood action star, and already we were six months removed from Terminator 2: Judgement Day’s release – the most expensive movie ever produced at the time, and widely regarded by many as one of the best sci-fi sequels ever made. It might seem strange, then, for a publisher like Virgin Games – a relatively modest offshoot of Richard Branson’s wider media empire – to want to capitalise on this ongoing success, not with a tie-in title based on director James Cameron’s spectacular follow-up, but rather the unexpected breakthrough hit from 1984 that started it all.

Admittedly, since it first hit cinema screens on 26 October of that year, had always seemed like a movie perfectly ripe for a videogame adaptation. Primarily centred on a future war in which a rogue AI intelligence has all but decimated the Earth using menacing metal endoskeletons, Cameron and producer Gale.” Needless to say, it didn’t take long for David to recognise that what he and his buddy were watching was something special. “I think we were in there alone, and James Cameron melted my brain,” he enthuses. “I absolutely loved the movie.”