When you deal with movie licenses in the realm of video games, it's rarely plain sailing. Take the upcoming Terminator 2D: No Fate, for example.
Given that it's based on James Cameron's utterly legendary 1991 movie, you'd expect the one and only Arnold Schwarzenegger to be featured—but as the more eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed, his likeness is nowhere to be seen in the game's promotional activity so far (at least not in close-up, anyway).
That's thanks to the rather complex nature of actors signing off on their image rights when it comes to related media. Speaking to IGN, publisher Reef Entertainment has revealed that it doesn't have the image rights to Arnie, and that's why his face isn't included in the game:
What we have is the right to use the characters. So like Sarah, John, T1000, T800, and then certain actors will also provide image rights to Studio Canal, which is included in the agreement. For example; Linda Hamilton is Sarah Connor, which is why you can see Linda at the beginning of the trailer. Whereas our right to use the Terminator itself, it doesn't include Arnold. When you see the character artwork for that, you'll see it's like the Terminator itself rather than Arnold. It's basically the endoskeleton that we have the right to use.
Arnie is no stranger to allowing his face to be used in video games—he's in Mortal Kombat 1 as the Terminator, for example. However, for that to have happened, lots of money presumably changed hands, and that's perhaps beyond the scope of a project like Terminator 2D.
Still, while the world-famous actor and one-time politician may have demanded too high a fee, 'future' John Connor is present in the game—and Reef tells IGN how it made it happen:
Michael Edwards played the future war version of John in the opening of T2. You see him, he lowers his binoculars, he's looking over the battlefield. Someone like that, we reached out separately to him to include his likeness. There's a definite difference between signing the T2 license and having the agreement to use the characters compared to the actor's likeness, which is separate.
Edwards is barely in the original film, but his role is important nonetheless; he shows that Connor matures into a true leader of men and is instrumental in humanity's resistance in the future.
Edwards isn't the only person to have played the role, of course; Christian Bale is 'future' John Connor in 2009's Terminator Salvation, while Jason Clarke steps into his boots for 2015's Terminator Genisys. Young versions of the character have been played by Edward Furlong (Terminator 2) and Nick Stahl (Terminator 3).
Amazingly, as IGN reveals, this isn't the first time Edwards—now in his eighties—has reprised the role of Connor. He starred in the Terminator fan film Skynet back in 2021.