Turok Origins [Preview]: There’s meat on these dino bones

Hands-on with the upcoming shooter that brings the beasts back

I’ve been reading up on de-extinction over the years, and though dire wolves are cute and a woolly mammoth would big, there’s nothing like a freaking dinosaur to change how we think about things. And while we may be a long ways off from having that happen, we at least have media to keep us occupied until that point. So it’s fitting that one upcoming game does two things in relation to de-extinction: it brings us more dinosaurs, and it brings back Turok, which we all thought was extinct.

Turok: Origins is a bold new take on that classic IP, but one that after my hands-on does a surprising amount of work to both modernize it and to be true to its beginnings.

The game is a 3-player co-op class-based experience, which may sound more frightening than the dinosaurs we face off in the game but it’s actually not. For one, it can still be completely playable with one person, and because of how the game scales up or down enemies depending on the amount of players it doesn’t feel like it’s made specifically for a group if we don’t have one. We play with the full 3-person squad during our session and can use any combination of classes — I choose a loadout that’s more defensive/heavy known as the Bison, and play alongside one player who prefers ranged weapons in the Raven and another who chooses the Cougar — and even when we do work together we can still move off on our own to explore and battle. It’s most evident to me when, in the first forest-based area we try, I decide to check out all of the rocks and outcroppings I see, eventually coming across a glowing artifact deep into a fallen tree trunk. “Wow, out of all of the sessions we’ve had you’re the first person who’s found that,” the dev team tells me. “Most people just stick together.” I don’t, I like to be a bit of a lone wolf when I can, especially in demos, to understand how a game will function when a player isn’t the most social.

This forest area has us battling raptors and alien soldiers, doing some very lite platforming and traversing as we head towards the goal. Along the way we can utilize each of our special abilities, like setting up defensive barriers (me!) or shooting explosive arrows off into the distance. We eventually take on a giant armored T-Rex, needing to scan its body to determine its weak points, and after some running around, shooting and more running we take it down. The boss battle is great, as the beast is really well-design visually to convey something that’s both terrifying and also impervious. Imagine fighting a Godzilla/Mechagodzilla hybrid.

In the second area we try I opt for the Raven, because I want to try the ranged weapons, and am not all that surprised that both of my other squad does as well. Once we’ve tried one class we want to check out the others, of course, and we all saw what the Raven was doing in our previous battles. In this area we’re inside of a temple where we need to utilize our jumping and grappling hook skills much more. Hookable areas are signified by a little icon that pops up, so whenever I come across a giant gap that may leave me feeling stuck I inherently look around until something pings my capabilities.

The jumping aspect is fun, and perhaps the whole reason this game feels so much like that original Turok on the N64. It’s a little chunky and weighted, on purpose, in first person view but it captures what we remember of that original without actually being bad this time. Switching to third person view alleviates some of that feel but hey, it wouldn’t be Turok baby. The shooting feels good, the stages are large (and replayable, I’m told, with updated and new missions each time), and when we manage to take down enough of an enemy’s damage we can unleash an awesome, brutal finishing move.

De-extinction is coming along well. Well, maybe not for the dinosaurs I’ve been facing in Turok: Origins. I shot enough of them that I may have cleared them out of history again. We’ll find out when the game launches this Fall on all major platforms.