Turok Origins Is Wild, Weird, And Way More Fun Than You're Expecting

Published Sep 21, 2026, 4:36 PM EDT Brandon Zachary is a Lead Writer for Screen Rant's New Movie Team. He also writes or has written for Comicbook.com, CBR, That Hashtag Show, Just Watch, and TVBrittanyF. Brandon is an Emerging Screenwriters Semi-Finalist, co-writer of a Screencraft Quarter-Finalist, a seasoned on-screen interviewer, and a MASSIVE nerd. You can reach him at bs.zachary@gmail.com Turok: Origins is a wild ride of a video game that feels retro in all the right ways. Debuting almost thirty years ago, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter was a memorably over-the-top action game that struck a great balance between tense dinosaur encounters and massive action set pieces. That success spawned a long-running series. Unfortunately, the series has lain dormant since 2008's Turok and the chibi-inspired 2019 spin-off, Turok: Escape from Lost Valley, which lost much of its connection to the lore and tone of the franchise's earlier successes. It's been long overdue for a revival in some shape or form. Saber Interactive is taking the reins and delivering what's already shaping up to be one of 2027's most purely entertaining action games. Taking as many cues from classic FPS adventures as it does update them for a modern generation, Turok: Origins is a blast to play. After getting our hands on it last month while attending GamesCon, it's easy to see what the developers are aiming for with this vibrant title. How Turok: Origins Brings Back The Classic Action Franchise Turok was always a bit of a weird series. The original games in the series introduced parallel realities, alien invaders, and rampaging dinosaurs as underlying threats. Turok: Origins takes the bizarre touches of the lore and amplifies them, focusing on the war between humanity and the reptilian Xenia race. In the game, players take on the mantle of one of the Order of the Turok, an army of warriors dedicated to fighting back. The indigenous inspirations that have always been inherent ot the series have been amplified for the new game, with the three character classes retaining clear cultural touchstones while infusing them with sci-fi and futuristic touches. The game lets you shape your character based on their class and your preferences, pulling you into a full-blown space opera where a paralyzed field commander must relinquish control of the battlefield to the soldiers under his daughter's command. There's already the makings for a fun sci-fi action epic in just those first few scenes, but it notably never gets in the way of the actual gameplay. Turok: Origins Is All Killer, No Filler At the core of Turok: Origins is a bombastic approach to combat that doesn't betray the natural settings or indigenous inspirations baked into the game. Each class comes with distinct combat options, like Bison's massive barriers or Cougar's slick movements. Players are able to shift back and forth between first-person and third-person views at will, letting them engage with the combat however they want to. For the most part, during my playthrough of the game's demo, the movement and action were non-stop and kinetic without ever becoming unnecessarily overwhelming. The stages are large enough and designed with enough detail that three players can all feel like the big hero of their own experience, with plenty of room to maneuver without feeling too disconnected to lose a sense of naturalistic grounding. The action is fast, without ever becoming unwieldy or confusing. It was easy to get involved in your own firefight, only to then quickly readjust to help a teammate overcome a swarm of killers heading their way. The result was action that benefited quick repositioning and non-stop fighting. Firing on enemies while dodging attacks felt natural, and the close-quarters executions are vivid and brutal. There's a natural sense of chaos to the action that feels fitting for an action game where you use a laser-powered bow to showdown reptilian aliens in the jungles, a sense of unrestrained excitement that feels like a genuine realization of what the series has always been striving for. Turok: Origins Is Massive, Absurd, And Exciting That sensation never felt more acute than during an epic boss battle that closed out the demo. After fighting through hordes of animalistic raptors and gun-toting lizard men, my team of three found ourselves in a rocky clearing, facing a ferocious, mutated Tyrannosaurus Rex. It was a massive boss battle where we constantly had to move around to dodge attacks while unloading a massive amount of firepower against specific weak points. It's very video game-y in a way that feels retro, even with cutting-edge graphics and modern game design. It was also just fun in a way a lot of modern shooters can't match. A sense of reckless abandon fits the game's approach to bombast. Deploying special moves to hit them with overwhelming damage was rewarding. It was fun to unload massive amounts of firepower on the hulking creature, which could genuinely endanger the player without being so much of a threat that it would completely overwhelm them. Bringing the T. Rex down was naturally rewarding and entertaining. Turok: Origins felt like one of the most naturally exciting and engaging gameplay experiences. It was an old-school shooter in terms of the vibes it created, even if the quality-of-life improvements that have come in the years since the original heyday of the Turok franchise have reshaped the action gene in some compelling ways. Turok: Origins Systems Released 2027 Developer(s) Saber Interactive Publisher(s) Saber Interactive Multiplayer Online Co-Op Franchise Turok Steam Deck Compatibility Unknown