Turok: Origins Won't Rival the Classics as a Bang-Average PS5 Shooter

Turok: Origins is a third or first-person shooter where you and two other friends take on sentient dinosaurs in a sprawling campaign. That pitch in itself made me think back to Saturday mornings as a kid watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers or even episodes of Xiaolin Showdown.

Of course, Turok isn’t really like any of those shows, but the essence is. It’s just a sort of daft premise and an excuse to do cool stuff in video game form. And with that, I was sure there would be some fun to be had with my friends when I tried out about half an hour of the game at Gamescom.

The mission I played saw this young warrior heading out on a trial to claim their “essence”. Before heading out, you have to select a playstyle, which basically boils down to assault, defence, and healer.

In practice, you then have access to different weapons, which range from assault rifles and miniguns to shotguns and plasma rifles. But you also have rechargeable abilities like healing areas, bubbles that slow down time, and so on.

When bullets started flying in my session, I couldn’t help but feel like I wanted a bit more. Most of the encounters I had with the dinos were over before you could get the blood pumping. Granted, this is likely an early portion of the game, and there was no mention of difficulty levels. But for most of this mission, it was a tepid repetition of a few dinos running up, getting blasted and moving on.

The most interesting thing I experimented with was switching between first-person and third-person. You can switch between them on the fly, and while I played the majority of the demo in third-person, it actually felt nice in either perspective. The controls are sharp either way, so it never felt like one was the true intended way to play the game.

The demo peaked with a boss fight with an armour-clad T-Rex, which would charge at us, bombard us with rockets, and even pull off a radius blast attack that we needed to jump over.

The fight required us to dodge, utilise all of our abilities, and, the biggest surprise, keep an eye out for ammo, as it would quite often run out or need a cooldown. But to be honest, I just felt like I was going through the motions.

The fight looked cool, and certainly with its 4K60 visuals, it tapped into that Saturday morning cartoon vibe which I enjoyed. But it lacked a certain juice. The fight didn’t feel difficult enough, and while you have weapons and abilities to switch between, you don’t need to use any of them.

I would have enjoyed an attack from our T-Rex pal that maybe could only be countered by a certain kind of weapon, really forcing a need to switch between all your weapons. But it really just felt like I would shoot with one gun until it ran out, switch to the other till it ran out, and use some abilities and wait till they recharged. Rinse and repeat.

So come the end of my demo, I was fairly unenthused by the whole thing. Certainly, there’s a potential appeal for some turn-your-brain-off action, and who knows, maybe combat will spice things up a little later on in the game. But I left my session with the impression that the whole thing was just fine.

Even the co-op itself felt unnecessary. We never had any obstacles that required us to speak to each other or help each other out. Even though we all had headsets on, not a single word was spoken across our demo. You can play the whole thing offline in solo play, which is a nice inclusion, but I think that speaks to how co-op has been implemented here.

The game is set to drop on PS5 in Spring 2027, and I’m hoping the full release has some surprises that weren’t showcased in my demo. But going by what I have played, this isn’t lighting any fires.

But what do you think about Turok: Origins? Is it a game that you’re keen to check out? Stomp your way down to the comments like a sentient dino, and let me know.