Turok
Propaganda Games talks up the revamp.
The last time we saw Turok... In fact, let's just leave that alone. The latest stab at dino-shooting comes from Vancouver-based Propaganda Games and publisher Disney Interactive, and transplants the action to a far-away world where dinosaurs are only half the trouble. With the game nearing the end of development, we caught up with Propaganda co-founder and studio manager Josh Holmes and game director Joel Manners to talk about their plans.
Eurogamer: Why bring Turok back now? What does he have to offer fans of the FPS genre waiting for games like Halo 3 and Crysis?
Josh Holmes: Turok is a classic FPS franchise that remains well-loved despite some of the shortcomings of the later games in the original series. We were able to acquire the rights for Turok and have made a game that pays homage to the elements that made the first games on N64 so special. Turok drops you into a dangerous living jungle and forces you to face off against terrifying predatory dinosaurs as you struggle to survive. The game offers a truly unique experience, blending elements of action and stealth in a prehistoric world.
We were able to acquire the rights for Turok to make an entirely new game based on the Turok licence but with an entirely reworking of the series. This game is not a sequel or an updated version of past Turok games. This is an entirely new Turok set in a futuristic world with dinosaurs and other dangerous creatures. The only elements that carry over from the original series are a main character named Turok - Joseph Turok in our game - and dinosaurs. Everything is brand new.

Eurogamer: The series has obviously been through highs and lows. What would you say were its defining characteristics and what have you been able to harness for this next-generation offering?
Joel Manners: When I look back on the first N64 Turok I remember it for a couple of things. First, it was the first time I ever played an FPS on a console and felt that it was really a first-class experience. A lot of people remember GoldenEye as the first real console shooter, but for me it was Turok, and that establishes the franchise as a premier FPS experience - something that we must uphold and take to this new generation of consoles. Second, of course, is that incredible feeling of being stalked in a dense jungle by the ferocious dinosaurs. It really felt mysterious and terrifying. To me, that's the heart of the franchise above and beyond what any other shooter has done, and that's something that we have made the heart and soul of the game experience. Of course, we've done it a little differently this time around.
Eurogamer: What sort of gameplay styles are we going to experience? Will you change things up regularly like Half-Life? Concentrate variety into a certain mechanic like Gears? What's the plan?
Joel Manners: There's a ton of different ways that you can be successful playing through Turok. One of the things we spent a lot of effort on was making the environments really respond realistically to the life and action that is taking place within them, so the player is free to use that to his advantage.
A player could take a more stealthy approach, staying concealed in the dense jungle foliage, using silent weapons to pick off his opponents one by one. Or he can unlimber the heavy weapons in his arsenal and blast his way through even the toughest opponents.
The more tactically minded players will soon realise that it's not just him against the world, too. Patrolling enemy soldiers are perpetually on guard against the ferocious predators of the Turok world, and they should be! If you can lure a pack of hungry raptors down onto the patrol, you can easily sneak past in the carnage that follows, or stick around to mop up the survivors. Players should look for those opportunities. A predator might be content to eat his fresh kill for a while, but if you could sting him or attract his attention and then slip away, he might just focus on the more obvious targets just around the corner or down the hill. It's a dangerous game, but very rewarding when you can pull it off.
Eurogamer: We understand that Turok's still hunting, but this time your prey's a war criminal on another planet. Can you tell us a bit about the story and what lay behind the decisions you made in that area?
Josh Holmes: The story is set roughly 200 years in the future. You play as Joseph Turok, a former black-ops soldier who has now joined his new unit, Whiskey Company. Together you are on a mission to take down Turok's former mentor, a war criminal named Roland Kane. As your ship nears the planet where Kane and his men are located, it is shot down. You crash-land in the jungle below and find yourself in a fight for survival, hunted by Kane's army in a prehistoric world filled with dangerous dinosaurs, huge insects and other creatures.
We wanted to re-imagine Turok and take everything we thought was great about the original series (the visceral FPS experience, dinosaurs, the Native American hero) and create a new story and game that lent itself to a powerful next-gen experience.

Eurogamer: Engines like Unreal 3 and Havok have levelled certain areas of the shooter playing field - physics, corridor shooter detail levels, and so on. Are you using an existing game engine or something of your own creation? What are your strengths technology-wise?
Josh Holmes: We're using a highly modified version of Unreal Engine 3. The Unreal engine is a powerful tool but it wasn't designed to create the type of experience we are delivering in Turok. Fortunately, we have a team of talented technologists who have been working on the game engine to expand its capabilities. We've put a lot of effort into developing our dynamic AI systems, building powerful animation technology and creating rendering solutions specifically for the jungle foliage and outdoor environments featured in our game. The result is a game that pushes technology to deliver a unique and innovative gameplay experience.
Eurogamer: Last we heard you were working on PS3 and Xbox 360. We're often told by developers that the 360 is more immediately gratifying to develop for but the PS3 has a tremendous amount of long-term potential to unlock. Does that hold true in your experience?
Joel Manners: Both platforms certainly have massive upside. The differences in graphics and gameplay that fans have been seeing, and will continue to see, between last generation and this generation are fantastic.
For the Turok development team it has really been more of a question that the Unreal 3 core that we are based on was more advanced on 360 than PS3 when we started, so we have spent more time developing the game on 360, and more time developing technology for PS3. In the end the game will look and play identically on both platforms.

Eurogamer: Both consoles have chosen to put online at the centre of their offerings. What sort of multiplayer options are you considering? Any plans for full-campaign co-operative ala Halo 3, Gears of War or Haze?
Joel Manners: We are definitely working on a lot of multiplayer goodness. Even though we are stressing the story-telling and drama of the single-player campaign, we know that the heart of a good FPS is in online.
The details of multiplayer aren't being released just yet, but there are a bunch of modes, including some of the most popular from recent games, and a wide variety of maps custom designed to support those modes. We are supporting 16-player matches.
Eurogamer: How will you be using Xbox Live and PlayStation Network post-release? Any plans for downloadable add-ons, either single- or multiplayer?
Joel Manners: We'll be discussing this at a later time.
Eurogamer: How far along is development and when's the game likely to come out? Are you worried about going up against games like Halo 3, Half-Life 2: Episode Two and Haze?
Joel Manners: The game is extremely close to finishing up. We are well past alpha, so most of our current effort is focused on bug fixing.
Obviously there are a ton of really good games coming out in the next few months, so as a gamer I am extremely excited. As a developer I also know that there is more to making a successful game than just having a great game. After weighing all of the options for release we've announced that the game will be in stores in the first quarter of 2008.
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Comments (52) Latest comment 5 years ago
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LOLLERSKATES!
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And I agree that Turok was the real first console FPS worth blasting through...Even if you couldn't see where you were going half of the time...
It'd be interesting to see that game without fog...Some of the architecture was pretty nice...
With Turok 2 being the absolute pinnacle of the series...
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Just took the Darkness back to the shop due to it..!
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So many ways... Do I use a shotgun or a rocket launcher? All these choices!
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Arrrrgh christ please MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!
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err, so they paid money for a license then made a different game, just with the 'Turok' name tagged on. What's the point of that? Do enough gamers still think Turok was any good that this kind of move makes sense? Why didn't they just create a new franchise that won't a) be compared to N64 games and b) be completely slagged off because of the shite rammed down our throats on the last gen of consoles?
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Encouragingly, due to the smoking ban, developing plots on the back of a fag packet in the pub is now illegal in England.
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please stop calling characters, usually evil ones, any variation on "Kane" or "Cain" or "Kain". We can handle more than one syllable in people's names, and it's getting really tiresome. Gaming has more Kane than a sugar plantation. It does not need any more.
Thanks.
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Make it so.
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The videos I've seen of this look suprisingly good.
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Ditto.
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Don't be silly, they obviously brought electrified fences with them...
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]http://uk .youtube.com/watch?v=kYvZnTFpip...[/link]
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Ok, it could be played in a staggeringly slow 640*480 but technically that's higher res than SD, so therefore it's HD....
/looks confused
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It might...though the second one might be a bit heavy...
Depends on how the licenses work...I'd play the second one all over again...
I played it until the excrutiating precise jumping bits on the final level...Then I just flipped the cheats on and finished it that way...
I still remember them by heart:
T1: On the eighth day god created turok (without spaces and without vowels)
T2: beware oblivion is at hand (without spaces)
T3: T3 (you have to input the T3 shape)
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If the game is any cop i'll buy it.
I don't see what the problem is with the premise of the game. Okay it's not exactly inspired but then neither was Gears of War and it sold plenty and was enjoyed by most.
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So, yes, I am eagerly waiting to see how the next-gen Turok shapes up.
What we need revived, though, is Trespasser. Now, that was a game of epic proportions in every sense.
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OOOOrrrr, ''Yeah we are shit scared of those big upcoming games, future Turok wouldn't stand a chance if released around the same time''
He's right, even though I'm actually really liking the look of this new one (some nice vids dotted around the net) if it released anywhere near Halo 3, I think it would sell considerably less than it would in the quieter Jan-March months.
I think I'd rather have this, than Haze next year. Haze isn't really doing it for me yet :/
I hope this new Turok still keeps the classic platforming parts, the exhilaration I felt in the first ones as I clumsily lept from pillar to pillar, falling to my death hundreds of times over due to the poor controls, hasn't been replicated since
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I mean, come on.
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This will most likely be another meh shooter
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Bring back THE ARM.
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+1. First proper belly-laugh I've had from an EG comments page.
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Well you did, really. It was called Half-Life 2.
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I swear.. if I hear of one more f**ing bad guy named Kain, Kane or Cain. I'm going to burst into tears.
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10-Jul-07 10:15:51 Dear Games Developers:
please stop calling characters, usually evil ones, any variation on "Kane" or "Cain" or "Kain". We can handle more than one syllable in people's names, and it's getting really tiresome. Gaming has more Kane than a sugar plantation. It does not need any more.
It'll be Ok in Kane & Lynch dead men though...
I like those kind of names, denotes a b-game right from the off....when cold winter used 'Andrew Sterling' it confused my little mind, but it turned out to be a B FPS with lots of blood, just what i wanted...could have missed that one though...not the case when you hear a name like Jericho Cross, you know that's gonna be a vampire western right then & there...
would maxwell cougar please come to reception...you've left your kids razer and kurt in the car park..
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I'd love for Turok to make a stellar comeback but I'm not sure this will be it.
Here's hoping though...
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actually, dinosaurs let loose in a ruined cityscape would be super awesome.
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You're doing it wrong.
"A lot of people remember GoldenEye as the first real console shooter, but for me it was Turok, and that establishes the franchise as a premier FPS experience"
No, for you != established. You're doing it wrong!
"Even though we are stressing the story-telling and drama of the single-player campaign, we know that the heart of a good FPS is in online."
YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.
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Turok was great. And even if you think it wasn't, how the hell does that prevent this from possibly being a good game in any way?
I swear, you people...
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Turok 2 on VC would be awesome. I'm hoping this new one will be good but it doesn't sound like they're going to stay true to what makes it Turok - sounds like some generic Far Cry with dinosaurs.
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The 360 maybe be easier to develop for but are you suggesting PS3 is the only console with "long term potential to unlock"? Have you been keeping that to yourself, I can't think of any none Sony exclusive devs who've suggested PS3 could offer more than the 360(its taking them long enough to even keep up with the 360 afterall).
For shame Tom you so wanted a Pro-PS3 quote there("PS3 is superpowerfull dont you agree?" sort of question). Well Id argue that the majority of 3rd party devs are and have been for a long time in agreement that they are both powerfull in their own right("untapped potential" for all then?). 360 seems like the best lead platform anyway, otherwise it will allow PS3 developement to slow 'everything' down and probably end up costing devs more.
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All chance gone of the cerebral bore/general gore being included?
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Oh, and @ quantum. While it may say Disney's the publisher don't let that put you off, Propaganda games is the developer, and they're big fans of Turok past.
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Sorry dudefella, thankyou for those few kind words, but I've no idea what /b/ is. However, I do know singleplayer is as important if not more so than multiplayer, especially in this game about which nothing is known EXCEPT singleplayer info, that the Turok series ruined its own reputation and hence is not a well-loved franchise any more, and that this one guy's opinion does not make it a premier FPS experience in objective terms. He is, therefore, doing it wrong.
EDIT: missing a space
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