The Terminator RPG is the official roleplaying game based on The Terminator movie and associated graphic novels published by Dark Horse comics. It is the sourcebook for the first Terminator film and its expanded universe and extrapolates from hardcore existing canon to create a living and breathing world with a multitude of possible and probable timelines. The world is a wasteland—broken by the machines we built. Our own creations, our own hubris. Not in some distant future. Today. Now. The machines think they have won, but there is one last chance for humankind; a secret weapon that Skynet, in its infinite calculations, could never have anticipated: You. Play in any time—including the 1980s and future war. All the main characters from the movie, such as Sarah Connor, Kyle Reese, and the T-800 are included, as is content from the graphic novels and all all-new, never seen before Terminator variants and hardware. The rulebook includes two mission packs, enabling you to relive The Terminator movie and to join the fight to bring down Skynet in a not-so-distant future war. You play resistance fighters struggling against the machine onslaught of Skynet in an alternative and post-apocalyptic version of today—the once "far future" of the 2020s. You can take the role of rebel time travelers sent back to various points in time to stop Skynet from altering history. You can even play natives of any historical time period, targeted by Terminators and trying to stay alive as a future hell is unleashed around you.

The Terminator RPG features Nightfall Games’ S5S System, first seen in SLA Industries 2nd Edition. The S5S is a d10-based rules system that uses a pool of dice: one Success die, and five Skill dice per player. The more skilled your character is in the task being attempted, the more likely you are to succeed and "succeed big." The rules set have been tailored specifically to The Terminator RPG setting. Combat, survival, and investigation are all dealt with in the rules, along with vehicle combat, time travel, and computer hacking, allowing your character to take control of the conflict with unique skills and training. You'll need all of this and more to take the fight across the timelines and survive.