Sawt Falasteen - US studio unearths fossilized dinosaur game 'Turok'

The original arrow-twanging Turok was a character in 1950s comic books, who made his way to Nintendo 64 consoles in a series of successful games in the late 1990s and then to other consoles in the 2000s.

After that, its eponymous native American adventurer was largely forgotten -- until US studio Saber Interactive dug him up for "Turok: Origins" and developed him into a game that looks like a blend of the "Jurassic Park" and "Predator" movie franchises.

When Universal Studios -- producer of the "Jurassic Park" movies -- tapped Saber in 2020 to develop its Turok intellectual property (IP), the gaming company was "shocked", its studio head, Jesus Iglesias, told AFP.

"It's been sleeping for a long time," he noted.

But Saber -- founded in Russia but now based in Florida in the United States -- had a track record of reviving some memorable but neglected titles.

"Saber Interactive is known for taking, from time to time, some dead IPs and rebooting them, like we did with (Warhammer 40,000's) 'Space Marine', we did with 'Evil Dead'," Iglesias said.

- 'Turok' reboot -

The result is "Turok: Origins", part of which was presented at Gamescom in Germany, one of the biggest gaming trade shows in the world, which ended on Sunday after welcoming more than 357,000 visitors.

The game, which Iglesias said had 250 people working on it at the peak of its development, offers single-player and multi-player modes to tackle AI-controlled enemies.

Whereas the original run of Turok was reminiscent of early-stage Lara Croft in a prehistoric setting, the "Origins" reboot promises a fluid, fast-moving and more cinematic experience, as demanded from today's players.

"We are being respectful with the originals, especially with Turok 1 and Turok 2, and also adding some elements that help to make the universe a little bit more consistent," Iglesias said.

"The games that they released after the first one, they were, in a way, going away from the original one. And that ended up in the game that was released in 2008 that was almost a disaster."

That 2008 game, simply called "Turok", had aimed to reboot the series but it got a mixed reception. A 2019 Turok title followed, but it was unconnected to the main series.

There is no release date yet for "Turok: Origins", which will be available on Xbox, Playstation and PC.

S.Abdullah--SF-PST