Any millennial who had a Nintendo 64 will tell you that one of the staples for the console was Turok, a franchise which began with 1997’s Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and released four games on the N64 alone. Since then, the first-person shooter title has struggled to maintain its relevance and audience over subsequent gaming generations, seemingly coming to an end with 2008’s Turok, published by Disney Interactive Studios of all companies. Saber Interactive has now taken the reins on the series with the upcoming Turok: Origins, which we got to play at Summer Game Fest 2026 as part of their demos available on-site, including Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival.Playable solo or in a team of up to three people, Turok: Origins unfolds like a linear mission-driven shooter in the tradition of Saber’s recent Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 albeit with its sci-fi/prehistoric aesthetic mash-up still very much intact. Players have an option between three character classes to choose from between deployments, each with their own loadouts and special abilities to support the squad. We personally went with the more acrobatic Raven class and the middle of the road Cougar class, though we were intrigued by the hard-hitting, tank-like Bison class and teamed up with several Bison players in our run.cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});Once deployed, Turok: Origins feels right within the arcade-style wheelhouse that made its original titles so much fun. There is no question of where to go next, no set of complex mission objectives, at least not in the build that we played. It’s simply a matter of progressing to the next enemy encounter, usually in an arena-like portion of the level, and blasting and/or cutting down every enemy in the immediate area into digitized viscera. And, naturally, this straightforward approach is where the entire game excels.All of the weapons that we tried felt intuitive and distinct from one another, be it futuristic assault rifles to chugging shotguns with plenty of up-close stopping power. The action is as frenetically paced as you can imagine, but we never got lost in the chaos, being able to tell where the enemies were coming from and keep track of where the ammo and health restoratives were around a given level. And every class has their own glory kill animations for each major enemy type in the game when the target’s health is low enough, denoted by a glowing outline, which had us rushing in to finish off each vulnerable opponent in gruesomely satisfying ways.And did I personally get the glory kill on the final boss of this demo build? I sure did and, yes, it felt fantastic.The game also looks much more visually impressive than I anticipated, rather than the repetitive environments and assets that tend to get used in a lot of contemporary extraction shooters. While not the most eye-popping game that we played during SGF 2026 weekend, Turok: Origins also isn’t necessarily trying to go for the most detailed and hardware-pushing presentation. The game keeps its levels varied enough and the combat runs smoothly, even with the controlled chaos of having multiple players and enemies running around trying to kill each other.The big thing to get used to, and this was more noticeable in a primarily interior mission that closed out our demo, is some of the level traversal mechanics. There are some areas where you can just sprint and jump and others where you need to use a grappling hook mechanic to swing across wider gaps. These moments were some of the less intuitive sequences in the demo compared to the more open environments, with minimal climbing and jumping. In the grand scheme, these are more quibbles than anything else but if I had to cite one area of improvement in the demo, that would definitely be it.Thankfully, those segments seem to be few and far in between, with the developers recognizing that Turok handles better as a fast-paced shooter than a platforming experience. And even with this in mind, we were never fully taken out of the experience and would’ve loved more time, if only to see what the Bison class was all about on the battlefield. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t have a confirmed release date yet, leaving us on the hook to see how the final build will play out.Who would’ve thought, in the Year of Our Lord 2026, that the most overtly fun first-person shooter we got to play at Summer Game Fest this year would be Turok: Origins. But it’s true and it’s caught us by surprise as much as anything else, reminding fans that the once-prolific dinosaur hunter should never be counted out completely. Though we only played an early build of the game, we definitely have the title on our radar now rather than regarding it as another attempt to revive a ‘90s franchise. Turok: Origins has enough of the sauce to bring the series back to prominence, or at least does its fans justice in a way its 2000s era titles didn’t.Welcome back, Turok. We missed you.Developed and published by Saber Interactive, Turok: Origins is slated for release in late 2026 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.The post Turok: Origins Brings the Dino Hunter Back from the Dead appeared first on Den of Geek.