I went hands-on with upcoming co-op third-person shooter Turok: Origins at Gamescom 2025 . While I’m not a mega fan of the dino-slaying series, I have enjoyed many of its earliest entries, including the Nintendo 64 trilogy and even the divisive multiplayer spin-off Turok: Rage Wars.
Aside from a now-delisted 2019 spin-off game, the series has been largely dormant since 2008’s Turok for seventh-generation consoles. It now returns in Turok: Origins, courtesy of developer and publisher Saber Interactive, with an as-of-yet unannounced release date.
Cutting to the important details, Turok: Origins is a co-op-focused shooter for up to three players. You pick a class-specific character – each with their own weapon and skill loadouts – and load into a map where you must complete a linear series of objectives before facing off against a climactic boss encounter.
My experience with the game is, so far, largely positive. Blasting prehistoric creatures and a hostile soldier-like alien race is tons of fun; weapons and quick-kill animations feel extremely slick, and I feel the choice of third-person perspective is a smart one.
I do have some concerns, though, primarily with environmental design. Maps do feel rather drab and samey from an aesthetic standpoint, and they were also incredibly dark, making it difficult to spot enemies hiding in shadows or overgrown flora.
Even in my short session, Origins was beginning to feel a little repetitive, so I’m currently unsure of the game’s replay value. But if Saber Interactive nails this, it could well be one of the best co-op games of recent years.
Hit ‘em with the brain destroyer
Let’s focus on the good for now, though. Combat does feel really good in Turok: Origins. Player characters are outfitted with a wide variety of weapon types, including shotguns, rifles, bows, and iconic series staples like the Cerebral Bore – a terrifyingly cruel instrument that quite literally sucks the brain out of an enemy’s skull.
When I asked creative director Jesús Iglesias if the Bore would be as overpowered as it was in prior entries, he didn’t hesitate with a resoundingly excited “yes!” Usually, a developer might want to ensure a degree of balance for powerful weaponry such as this, but I more appreciate the fact that Saber seems to have as much reverence for this legendary tool of destruction as Turok series fans do.
The good news is that Saber Interactive clearly has a lot of love for the source material. Dinosaur variety is impressive, with each type offering its own challenge. Some prefer to charge you at melee distance, while others will hang back and try to get a height advantage, raining down gobs of acid.
What I will note, then, is that spatial awareness is key to success. Origins’ maps (from what I’ve played so far, at least) are designed with at least two vertical layers. A coordinated team of three definitely has the best chance of success here, as you’ll likely need to call out priority threats and divvy up the team’s attention based on individual characters’ skill sets.
One class, for example, felt perfect for melee combat. Their skills allowed them to buff their own damage. Another seemed better focused on crowd control, able to spawn barriers to restrict enemy movements. In isolation, it’s all pretty simple stuff, but in a co-op setting, the synergies these skills provided definitely enhanced the fun factor.
Welcome to the jungle
Overall mission progression was fairly straightforward, as we progressed from a dense jungle to a hidden temple, before facing off against a colossal cyborg stegosaurus (yes, really) in a large circular arena. Objectives ranged from simply activating a set of nodes to killing a certain number of enemies.
The basic nature of these objectives seems fine for the early game, but what had me more concerned was the level design itself. Environments (especially exteriors) are pretty, but also somewhat maze-like and repetitive in nature. I also couldn’t help but note that it was easy to lose sight of enemies amongst the thick foliage, leaving myself open to several surprise attacks. Though honestly, this could well be intentional on the developer’s part.
What’s even more annoying than that was that the environments felt overly dark. It could well have been the monitors we were playing on, of course, but an overall lack of light sources certainly didn’t help when it came to spotting enemies or objectives.
Thankfully, things picked up again when we went against the aforementioned stegosaurus boss. The towering creature had plenty of armor and wasn’t afraid to literally throw its weight around.
My team had to really grapple with the mechanics of the fight, loosening its armor to expose weak points for bigger sums of damage. On that front, saving powerful skills for when we needed them most was crucial. If a teammate goes down, you are able to revive them, but that could be difficult in such an intense battle.
To help things along, ammo is a universal resource across all weapons, refillable by ingesting yellow plants strewn across the battlefield. However, this too (along with the blue-hued healing plants) is a limited resource in itself. So we still had to be careful not to play too fast and loose with our resources and our lives.
So far, Turok: Origins seems like it’ll be an enjoyable experience for three friends. I’m not too sure it’ll hold up quite as well in solo play (which is supported), and I hope that levels and objectives get more ambitious as the game progresses. But I definitely would be keen to play more when it eventually launches on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
