p> I said yes to a one-hour hands-on preview of Turok: Origins at Gamescom 2025 because of dinosaurs. I thoroughly enjoyed my one-hour hands-on preview of Turok: Origins at Gamescom 2025 because of – surprise – dinosaurs. It turns out, shooting dinosaurs with futuristic bows and arrows, shotguns, and light machine guns while using special class-specific abilities rules. Though my initial impressions of the game are “shooting dinos makes my brain go brrr,” there are a few more things about Origins to be excited about.
Chief among them: Saber Interactive. Director Jesús Iglesias states that Saber’s Madrid studio is the primary team behind Origins, but notes that more than 250 people in Madrid and various other Saber studios worldwide are working on the game. Though Madrid’s last main game was Evil Dead: The Game, a fine but short-lived asymmetrical experience, Saber’s track record of reviving almost-dead franchises, like last year’s Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, gives me confidence that Origins isn’t going to be a failed reboot a la 2008’s Turok, which effectively killed the mainline franchise. It was oddly refreshing to hear Iglesias explain that Origins is looking to the successes of the first four Turok games and decidedly not 2008’s iteration either.
Before jumping into the game alongside two other members of the press, we selected our classes amongst Raven, Cougar, or Bison. It’s here that Iglesias explains Origins leans heavily into Native American and indigenous culture, connecting to the first two Turok games, which did the same. However, Origins is technically the first Turok story in the in-universe narrative. Naturally, we follow up by asking Iglesias how the team handled this aspect of the game – he says Native American culture was built into the studio’s first pitch for bringing back Turok, and hired Native American culture consultants to ensure its work was enriching and respectful, not offensive. The animal-based classes represent the game’s use of Native American culture, Iglesias explains.
I don’t experience enough to tell how ingrained that culture is in Turok: Origins, but for gameplay purposes, the Raven, Cougar, and Bison represent different classes with skill trees built around “Mantles.” These are the suits your characters wear in Origins that allow them to splice the DNA of creatures, plants, and other elements of nature into their Mantle to gain special abilities and powers. Unfortunately, I don’t get to see how this Mantle works beyond the preset classes we use in our demo.
As for the demo, though, I had a really great time. The gunplay feels great, and I appreciate the wide variety of weapons and weapon types already on display. I utilized a light machine gun with a big charge-up before it unloads an onslaught of bullets that rip into the flesh of whatever’s in front of it. I also used a chunky shotgun with a lot of firepower and a strange, cool green-orb launcher that melts enemy health with an acid-like effect. Additionally, I wielded a bow and arrow that felt like a sniper rifle – slow but powerful at range. The gunplay isn’t anything extraordinary, but it felt good on the sticks, and again, when your primary enemy is various dinosaurs, it’s hard not to have a good time.
I enjoyed switching between a first and third-person perspective on the fly with the d-pad, and it’s impressive how quick the transition is and how good both perspectives feel. I genuinely don’t know which one I’ll choose, though my Space Marine 2 habits have me thinking the latter.
The weakest part of the demo was the objectives. I couldn’t tell you what we were tasked with doing; it’s a hodge-podge of sci-fi mumbo jumbo and progress-forward-to-this-point-and-kill-everything-along-the-way, but with grappling, light platforming, and a small defend-this-area section, I wasn’t bored with things to do. The animal class abilities allowed me to do massive AOE damage, put up a deployable shield, and shoot a horde of wasps (or some other insect) at enemies to dispose of them quickly, and while visually neat, they aren’t all that different from the types of abilities and ultimates you find in any other class-based game. I hope the skill trees I didn’t get to see allow me to morph my classes into something more distinct.
Some additional things have me excited for Origins, like Saber’s desire to expand on unexplained narrative elements of the series’ past and the way it integrates Native American and Indigenous culture into both the story and gameplay, but ultimately, my desire for more comes down to one simple thing: I like shooting dinosaurs with big guns, and Origins is excelling at that so far.
