Turok always brings me back to a very nostalgic place in my youth. I was seven at the time and remember vividly how blown away my brother and I were with the game. The guns, the gore, and the Dinos were such an awesome combination. I’ve been a fan of the series through its ups and downs, and it was awesome to have Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and Turok 2: Seeds of Evil (wow, we still have our old score boxes in that one) remastered by Nightdive Studios. The reboot (just named Turok) tried out some new things, but ended up feeling like most other FPS military styled shooters of the time and it just missed the mark. Well, Saber is now taking a stab at the series with Turok: Origins, and I got my hands on it for about an hour.

So let’s get this out of the way right now and say that this isn’t a classic Turok styled game of the ones we grew up with, but I’m sure you already know that based off the trailers. Saber is doing what they do best, and that’s making a co-op action shooter with tons of enemies on screen and plenty of gore. There are loadouts with loads of customization and powers to unlock and use. This isn’t the Turok we grew up with, but that doesn’t mean its a bad thing. Saber’s goal is to bring the series to the modern era with new gameplay, new story, and a new look, but still trying to keep the general Turok lore and theme in place.

There will be a wide variety of enemies and variants of each to keep things interesting.

Turok: Origins’ demo started out with us having to choose our class. There are three classes: Bison, Cougar, and Raven. The names fit the style well with Bison being the Tank/Support, Cougar doing high DPS/Melee, and Raven being the Archer/Range Specialist. Each class comes with their own set of weapons and abilities that suits playstyles. However, speaking with Alberto Tabares (senior game producer at Saber), he says that the abilities and loadouts will be customizable with the characters. So the Primal Forms listed above and the loadouts aren’t locked together. This was important for me to ask because for the demo, only the Cougar had access to the Cerebral Bore, and I’m going to need that for all classes.

Next step as we loaded in was asking if we wanted to play in third or first-person. I will admit, I was a bit fussed when the game was revealed and they only showed a third-person perspective. I’m okay with taking new direction, but for me, Turok is a first-person shooter. I was very relieved when they decided to still include first-person based off the feedback from fans. However, I get why they wanted to try and go with third-person. As Alberto explained, they are going to have a lot of customization. Outfits are a big part of the game; I even unlocked some during the demo by discovering a special room. You will be able to upgrade and change your outfits and character looks, so they wanted to showcase that in third-person mode.

One of the variants of the large T-Rex sized enemies.

The first level we played was in a nicely detailed and dense forest area. Here, we had some random raptor enemy types that were roaming the level, but the main baddies in Turok: Origins will be the Xenia. These are Reptilian humanoid creatures that will be loaded with tech and weapons. In typical co-op shooter level design we had a bunch of points where we had to collect as a team and hold our ground from waves of enemies. These moments offered plenty of ways for the team to synergize their abilities. Putting up shields, throwing out orbs that slow enemies within a radius, enraging our characters for boosted stats, doing take down finishers, and much more. It was all very tight, gameplay-wise, and the abilities were fun to use and felt unique to who I was playing as.

We eventually got to the boss fight, which was a massive T-Rex equipped with tech and rocket launchers. It would charge at us chomping, launch a salvo of rockets around the arena, and tail whip us across the area. Using the scan ability could pin point the bosses weakness so the team can focus fire on it. It was a fun and hectic fight that made good use of the dodge feature. In third-person you will do a dodge roll, while in first-person you just do a dash. I feel like the dash is more advantageous because you can keep shooting and aren’t in a rolling animation. Either way, both evades come with i-frames in order to dodge through attacks when necessary.

The temple level was cool and featured verticality and exploration.

For the next level I switched over to the Cougar class because that was the one with the Cerebral Bore. I’m glad I switched because the new level we went to was inside this awesome looking ancient temple. This level featured new enemy types with flying creatures and smaller crab like ones that would swarm us. The Cougar I played as had the ability to shoot poisoned spikes out of their skin and hit anything close to me, as well as a scream attack that could go across the map. However, what I enjoyed most was that sweet Cerebral Bore. It’s back in all its glory, chasing down its enemy and digging down deep into them until they pop and fountains of blood comes out. Still so satisfying!

Across the map were items to find and these were what eventually unlocked a secret area where we found the extra outfits. There was verticality to this level so you’ll need to be on the look out for grapple points around the map. Our time with Turok: Origins ended with another boss fight. This time it’s a big chunker of a boy with massive firepower and shockwave attacks. Fast movement and dodging through the shockwaves was key to succeeding here. Much like the T-Rex fight, it was intense and fun, and I even got to do the final execution move on him.

There is also a bit of platforming in here. Timed jumps to moving platforms and precision jumps to thinner wooden bridges.

It’s always hard to judge difficulty in these demos since they are always typically overpowering the players so they don’t get stuck or frustrated. Clearly our loadouts were more advanced than we should have had at the time, but we beat these two levels fairly easily. You can play solo, as well as increase difficulty, so I don’t have any worries about adjusting it how you want to play. Before I left, I did ask about there being more enemies on screen. Saber is known for its massive hordes of enemies, and after just playing Toxic Commando, I had to ask. Alberto reassured me that there will be sections where we will be fighting huge hordes of enemies.

So what are my final thoughts on Turok: Origins? I had to ponder for a bit. If you’re going in only wanting what you remember from the classics, then you aren’t going to find that here. However, I really enjoyed what I played. I wanted to play more and I want to play this with my son and brother in three player co-op. If you enjoy Saber’s over the top, high action, co-op styled games, as well as Turok, Then Turok: Origins will hit in the right way.

Turok: Origins is planning to release in Fall 20206 on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2.

*All images were provided by the publisher.