With Lieutenant Church heading north in search of new recruits and allies for the growing Resistance, the task of holding the heartlands has fallen to you, the player, charged with managing our forces and standing firm against the relentless advance of Legion’s hordes.
And so, here we stand, preparing to face the challenge of our newest addition: Terminator: Dark Fate – Defiance: Uprising!
The new Conquest Mode DLC is being released very soon, and so I thought it would be a good time to give a bit more detail on some of the new quality of life features that have been introduced.
You can see some of the new content that the Mode will bring on the Steam page here:
Faction Icons
We released a screenshot of the world map last month. I wanted to show you the updated version with new faction icons now in each sector that they own. To be honest, this was due to a number of color blind people who noted they couldn’t tell the difference between some of the factions. I think you’d agree, the new faction icons make that much easier to see.
(Conquest Map showing new faction icons)
No Saves for a Rogue Like Experience
So, the team made the decision for the Uprising Conquest Mode to remove the Save Game function during most battles.
There are still some autosaves during a few ‘critical’ missions when objectives have been met, but these are slightly longer,harder missions. For most battles, there is no save, as battles should be somewhat shorter, with missions being won or lost in 15-20 minutes.
There will always be an autosave BEFORE the mission, which is made every time you press DEPLOY in the mission briefing screen.
However, as there are many elements that are RANDOM, when you re-load a mission from that save, you will likely get a different experience. Your spawn point(s) may be different, the enemy will attack from a different direction and encounters may be different. Even skipping a couple of days may mean that the mission will be somewhat different.
This has been designed to create the Rogue Like experience that the Conquest Mode gives you.
(Mission Briefing screen showing Deploy - and is that a new map!!)
Retreat
With the more Rogue Like game flow of the mode, we have provided a RETREAT option during battles which allows you to extract your troops immediately.
This allows you to sneak into sectors and ‘steal’ trophies and scavenge vehicles, without starting a large-scale battle. You can also help to weaken an enemy (if you can’t destroy it in one go), as all destroyed units will temporarily reduce your opponents strength (reserves). When attacking the sector again, the enemy will be weaker. And if that sector is cut off from its key point, then its ‘strength’ will not be replenished.
So, retreat becomes a very useful feature to sneak, and not be overwhelmed.
(Retreat option is found on the Menu. There is still honor in leaving, to fight another day)
Evacuation & Re-deployment
Throughout the missions in the Uprising Conquest Mode, the EXIT area is always available, allowing players to extract units from the mission battle, back to the Army Reserves screen.
This then allows you to re-supply, heal (if you have spare troops available), repair and refuel vehicles. It then allows you to re-deploy them if you have a slot remaining for that unit type.
One-Button Extraction
When you have gained a victory on the battle, when you have achieved the objective, whether that is domination, defended a point for a given amount of time, or depleted the opponents so they retreat, a VICTORY button appears, allowing for a quick extraction if you wish.
This finishes the map, and your units are returned to the Army Management screen.
So, you do not have to move all your units to the EXIT area to extract them.
You can use the VICTORY extraction whenever you like once the battle has completed, so you may want to spend some time scavenging for vehicles and weapons, get drivers into vehicles, picked up weapons, and then press VICTORY to extract with your new found loot.
I have found playing the Mode, that with Extraction abilities, you can use tank drivers and other specialised drivers to drive vehicles off the map, remove the driver out of the vehicle, and then re-deploy them without a vehicle, to search and drive other vehicles off the map.
Abandoned Vehicle Markers
Most maps will have abandoned vehicles, and as these are discovered, you are informed by an officer, and a marker is placed on the map. This is very useful when salvaging the battlefield after a fight.
(An abandoned vehicle marked on the map. An Integrators Plasma Howitzer!)
And Finally
There will be more information dropping about the Uprising Conquest mode before it is released, so please do watch out. And I am always available to answer your questions, when I can, on the official discord channel here.
Join Discord
And finally, I want to leave the last word to Major Stevens, who returns for the new Uprising Conquest Mode. Here is some dialogue of his straight from the game:
“The mission's in crisis in the heartlands. Legion, barbaric Marauders, Cartel gangs, those blasted machine cultist Integrators - friends are hard to come by, but we got a few left still. We'll need to rally with every last one of em, soldier, 'cos I ain't ready to say die to the machine. Not yet.”
So, good luck on the battlefield soldier, the Uprising is almost here!