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There is a generation of gamers who know Turok well. For me, it is first and foremost an N64 game, a dinosaur-killing first-person shooter alternative to Rare’s all-conquering GoldenEye. But there is a generation of gamers who have never even heard of Turok before, let alone played it. So how does developer Saber get younger gamers interested in playing the upcoming Turok: Origins?
The answer, Saber development chief Tim Willits told me at gamescom 2026, is co-op. Playing with friends is massively important for younger gamers, he said, and so Saber has made sure to include it as a feature.
“It’s been a balancing act to make sure that we had enough elements in it to make guys like you happy, like the Cerebral [Bore] gun, some throwbacks to the original Turok player, some other elements,” Willits said. “You can play first-person or third-person. So we want guys like you to be like, ‘Oh, this is cool.’ And then the dinosaur bosses are awesome.
“But we also want to make sure that we can get fans who have never played a Turok game. Like my kids, they’re 22, they have never even heard of Turok. So we want to also build a game that looks amazing, plays great. You can play it by yourself or with one friend or two friends. We want to appeal to new players that have never played a Turok game as well.
“That’s been our guiding principle with Turok. Add things that people like you would appreciate and like, but build a game that could be attractive to new players.”
You can see this theory in action across the video game industry. While single-player games remain enormously popular, hangout games have generated and continue to generate billions of dollars. Battle royales such as PUBG and Fortnite were built on the back of groups of friends chatting while playing. COVID lockdowns only accelerated the need for video games as social spaces, with Call of Duty battle royale Warzone an early beneficiary. Extraction shooters such as Escape from Tarkov and, more recently, Arc Raiders, were also fueled by friends who played together. A lot of the appeal of Helldivers 2 came from the shenanigans you could get up to with your friends.
Then there’s the rise of ‘friendslop’ games, which are massive across Steam (Roblox clones are incredibly popular, too). And we have a perfect example of this appeal only recently: Bulkhead’s hit Steam game Wardogs is a shooter that revolves around playing with friends. “I truly believe it is not about the mode, it’s about letting players run wild,” Bulkhead boss Joe Brammer recently tweeted. “The more you constrain players the less fun it is, FPS games are social experiences and Wardogs is closer to Mecca Chameleon than COD.”
Enter Turok: Origins, which shouldn’t be compared to something like Wardogs or a battle royale, of course, but it does let teams of three players join up to shoot dinosaurs in the face. Think Space Marine 2 but instead of fighting Tyranids, you’re fighting dinosaurs with lasers.
“It looks amazing,” Willits continued. “The big giant boss fights — I’m not even sure if this is a term — do you know the boss run games? It has that kind of feel to it. And wait till you see some of our cool bosses! And then playing with the friends, it’s really important to young gamers now. Like you and I are like, we play by ourselves. We’re old. So you can play either way, but it’s really important to a huge audience to at least have the option to play with someone else.
“Because young people use video games as a social connection more so than you and I did, because we grew up in different times. And so it looks great, play is fun. The Echoes [you collect Echoes to unlock Turok powers] are amazing. The boss runs are sweet and you can play with your friends. So I feel it has those elements that will attract new people.”
Turok: Origins is due out spring 2027 on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and Nintendo Switch 2. Check out our Turok: Origins hands-on preview for more.
Wesley Yin-Poole
Director, News
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
