Bitmap Bureau tell Us Why You Should Be Excited for Terminator 2D: NO FATE

Interview posted by: by Gemma @ Juicy Game Reviews / TheGebs24

Bitmap Bureau's Upcoming Terminator 2D: NO FATE launches in September 2025

Recently, Bitmap Bureau announced their latest project; Terminator 2D: NO FATE; a upcoming 2D Side Scroller that sent the internet in to meltdown. Terminator 2D: NO FATE is a gorgeous take on the Terminator 2 movie, packed with stunning pixel art and enticing visuals.

Now I wrote this interview before I knew Terminator 2D: NO FATE was launching. You might be wondering why there are not more questions geared towards the game? All I will say is keep an eye on Bitmap Bureau's socials to see more exclusive interviews about T2D. Not to mention, Bitmap Bureau have released some incredible video games over the last few years. So, let's dive in and see what Mike, one of founders and developers, has to say.
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1/ Mike, can you tell us a little bit about your personal gaming history?
Hello Gemma, and hello to your followers too! I started playing video games from a pretty young age, with the arcade versions of Xevious and Nemesis / Gradius leaving a lasting impression on me when I was around 7 or 8 after playing them in a fish and chip shop in Cornwall! I would also spend a lot of time playing on my mates’ ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 - games such as Ant Attack, Ghostbusters and Ranarama really captivated me. As a kid I would seek out any opportunity to play video games, whether that was at a friend’s place or in some smoke-filled trucker’s cafe. Eventually though my parents bought our family our own computer, taking on the financial burden of getting an Amstrad PC1512 on hire-purchase - that almost certainly changed my life though, and set me on the right path.
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2/ What led you into working in the gaming industry? 
At school and college I didn’t really know what career path I could or should take, and I was told that I wasn’t academic enough to go to university - my career advisor told me I should join the police force of all things! But I felt that video games were in my blood, and I had to at least try getting into the video games industry. After staying on at college to do a third year (which was largely a waste of time), I started applying to QA / tester jobs I saw advertised in the back of EDGE magazine - after several rejections, Aardvark Swift, (a large gaming recruitment agency) managed to get me an interview at Sales Curve Interactive, a prominent game developer and publisher which unbeknownst to me had a development studio in my home town of Southampton. Not knowing how to prepare for such an interview I took along my PlayStation memory card which contained my best Ridge Racer lap times - I don’t think they even looked at them in the interview, but the fact that I’d even bothered went some way to convince them to give me the job!

3/ What inspired you to start Bitmap Bureau and how would you describe BB to someone who knew nothing about video games?
Myself and Matt Cope started the studio with another old friend and colleague of ours (Stefan Barnett) around 9 years ago, although we’d all been involved in the industry for many years before that at a studio called “IOMO” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOMO) where we were creating some of the the earliest mobile games for the classic Nokia phones, way before the iPhone was a thing. :) If you knew nothing about video games then I guess I would describe us as a game development studio where our main focus is creating new games for old systems, maintaining that classic look and feel of the golden era of gaming that spanned the ‘80s and ‘90s.

4/ Bitmap Bureau created some amazing 16bit titles over the years. What are your personal faves and why?
I’m really happy with how Xeno Crisis turned out, particularly for the Mega Drive, as we weren’t even sure if the game was technically feasible when we were designing it! I think the amalgamation of the excellent pixel art, amazing soundtrack, and great gameplay resulted in a game that is regarded as one of the best on the system, but I know we can push things ever further. Final Vendetta was a lot of fun to work on too - I’d been wanting to make a beat ‘em-up for many years, and it was only when we came across the animator Jabir Grant that it became possible - he designed and animated every sprite in the game, and did an amazing job. Lee Mintram’s soundtrack is absolutely banging too!

5/ What are some of your biggest challenges as game developers and how do you overcome these? 
I’ve been an indie developer for something like 17 years now, and the biggest issue was nearly always the financial side of things. We were heavily reliant on advertising revenue made from our Flash titles, and there were times when we had very little coming at all, which meant having to live off credit cards, cutting back as much as possible. It was very tempting to quit altogether and go back to working in a well established studio with a regular income, but I’m glad that I stuck with it. There’s no easy solution to the financial problems you face as an indie other than making a game that lots of people want to play, and I think that if you have perseverance and patience and a real desire to create video games then you’ll get there in the end!

Terminator 2D: NO FATE (Source: Bitmap Bureau)

Final Vendetta (Source: Bitmap Bureau)

Xeno Crisis (Source: Bitmap Bureau)

6/ All of your titles (Xeno Crisis, Final Vendetta, Battle Axe and 88 Heroes) have incredible pixel art. What games/artists are the inspirations behind such beautiful work?
Most of us at Bitmap Bureau grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, which for me was gaming’s golden era. From a young age I’ve always been fascinated by Japanese game developers, particularly the likes of Capcom, Konami, Namco, Taito, Sega, Nintendo, SNK etc, and I’ve often strived to make games in the same vein. Xeno Crisis’ look was defined by the excellent Henk Nieborg who is now our art director, and you’ll see influences from games such as Toaplan’s “Out Zone” and Sega’s “Alien Syndrome”, but also Western titles such as Smash TV, The Chaos Engine, Alien Breed and so on. Henk was also the artist on Battle Axe. With Final Vendetta we were very much aiming for that classic SNK look, which we really think that Jabir nailed!

7/ Will we ever see Final Vendetta come to the SNES?
We will soon be announcing another couple of platforms that Final Vendetta will be coming to - we’ve certainly been looking into whether a SNES version is viable, but the big issue is the SNES’ horizontal resolution of 256 pixels, which results in stretched pixels. This means that all of the artwork would have to be “squished” to make it look more appropriate, and when you’re dealing with thousands of frames it’s a daunting task. You can see what happens when you don’t do this by comparing something like Earthworm Jim on the SNES compared to the Mega Drive:
https://retro-sanctuary.com/mobile/Comparison-earthworm-jim-mob.html
So yeah, it’s technically possible for us to bring Final Vendetta to the SNES, but reworking the art is a huge barrier.

8/ What is the most difficult console to port a game to?
I think for the reasons stated above, the SNES can be quite time consuming - Xeno Crisis had to be altered quite a bit to make it work, but at least we were able to throw in some nice extras such as transparency effects. In terms of 16-bit platforms it looks like the Amiga could be quite a challenge, but a few of us are interested in bringing Xeno Crisis to it. I’m not sure if we’ll ever create an 8-bit port, but the Gameboy could be an option.

9/ Why should fans be excited about Terminator 2D: NO FATE?
We believe that it’s the most faithful translation of the classic sci-fi action film to videogame ever, and we’ve put a huge amount of effort into it on all fronts - the gameplay, pixel art and of course the soundtrack. Not only that, but we’ll soon be announcing which retro platforms the game will be coming to, for an even more nostalgic experience!

10 Tell us where people can find you online
Here’s a few social media links:
https://x.com/BitmapBureau
https://www.facebook.com/BitmapBureau
https://www.instagram.com/bitmapbureau/
https://www.youtube.com/@BitmapBureau

We also have an online store where you can purchase our retro titles as well as various bits of merchandise such as vinyl and t-shirts:
https://shop.bitmapbureau.com/

Finally, there’s also our website where you can find out more about us and our games:
https://www.bitmapbureau.com/

Thanks for reading everyone and we hope you enjoy what we’ve got in store for you over the coming years!

Mike