Turok (2008) - What Happened?

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SOURCES:

Thanks to Daryl Mandryke and Tim Lewinson for the extra information!

Turok Wiki - Turok (2008)

IGN - Turok - Welcome to the Jungle

IGN - Avoiding Extinction With Turok

Engadget - Turok ships 1 million, cheap 5 map DLC tomorrow

Firstpost - E3 2007: TUROK DELAYED

IGN - Pre-E3 2006: Turok Premiere Interview

MUSIC:

Turok Evolution - Raining Fury
Mercenary Kings - Jungle
Cadillacs & Dinosaurs - The Dinosaur Wasteland
Star Fox Adventure - Egg Thieves
Glover - Prehistoric (Stage 2)
TMNT Shredder's Revenge - Dinosaur Stampede!
Turok Evolution - Dino Depot
Turok 2 - Port of Adia

#turok #whathappened #mattmcmuscles

[Manawolfman]

Ah yes, Turok, definitely an IP to pick up if you're not looking for super violence or gore. Whoever at Disney thought was a good idea must have taken a cerebral bore to the dome.

[TheJonamir]

I was a QA tester for this game back in the day with Disney Interactive Studios. The game has a lot of flaws but it was really fun to LAN deathmatch with other testers and get paid for it!

[hopefulgeneration]

With this wave of some pretty good retro styled shooters making a comeback, I hope Turok will as well. Turok 2 is the first fps game I've ever played, the series deserves a comeback.

[jamesconnolly]

Most likely been requested before, but a What Happened on SimCity (2013) could be interesting, if possible. One of the first games to usher in the "always online" BS. Essentially killed the franchise. I'd love to see Matt's take on it.

[windofchaosblows]

When I heard "bought" and "Disney" in one sentence I already understood this story won't going to end with a masterpiece

[Gaz_]

I honestly think Turok would do better if it kept the colorful semi campy style of the originals.
It gave it a unique style and personality that would've made it stand out, I feel like it's not inherently outdated.
Doom Eternal is wacky and ridiculous and colorful and that game was incredibly successful, but we also live in different times from the 2000's, so who knows.

[thomasderosso]

I'll never stop being fascinated by every company's drive to be the Next Big Thing In AAA, when evidence shows that this has a 99% failure rate, as well as like a 50% chance of ending up on What Happened.

Just... make something good.

[kokotheclown]

The fact the Disney own a ruthless dinosaur hunter that kills with no remorse has to be the most bonkers Disney ever did it’s like Nintendo owning a horror IP like Fatal Frame oh wait they did for a time

[Vianyte]

The moment you said that Halo was a strong influence on the game, it all made sense. So many shooters in those days kept trying to copy Halo style shooting and its mechanics and ended up being worse for it.

[deathsyth]

"I. AM. TUROK!"
- Tal'Set, 'Turok: Dinosaur Hunter' (1997)

"Am I Turok?"
- Joseph Turok, 'Turok' (2008)

[AH-enyy]

Yo Matt, love your work and videos. One thing, I worked at Disney. Testing turok. Touchstone didn't exist. It was always DIS. They used that name as a sort of "scapegoat" so Disney interactive was not associated with a soft M game. The license was acquired when Michael Eisner was in charge as Buena Vista games. Then Bob Iger came in and wanted synergy and rebranding everything as Disney and having the Disney name. Hence, Disney interactive studios. Thanks for the hard work. I have other insights for projects at dis, and other companies if you're interested. I suggest the game time shift. It was a real shit show. A game we were on for 9 months, all nighters with teams in two shifts, only to have them put it in Again. Cheers!

[PNDKM]

The weird thing is, the game was actually really fun. It was a damn solid FPS, just in no way a Turok game, and THAT was by far the biggest problem. For its time, the gunplay felt great.

The one thing that never gets talked about (and to be fair, I totally get it), is actually how fun the Multiplayer was. Although the netcode was kind of bad depending on ping, the Multiplayer component was super active for a fair while. It took the really fun combat and applied it to a creative MP setting with environmental hazards, enemy AI placed in the worlds near power weapons to cause havok, it felt a little bit ArenaFPS like, which was exactly what it should have been given the premise Rage Wars set back in the day. There was also a 4 player coop scenario mode that was incredibly challenging but satisfying to win due to how limited the lives were.

There were some really good parts of this game, but it just wasn't in any way a Turok title. And that's guna hurt for a while.

[PhriekshoTV]

It's really a damn shame this killed the franchise for the most part. Nightdive is doing wonders with the remasters and I hope that they get to Evolution, because Idgaf it was my favorite

[ORLY]

Part of me wants somehow someway for Turok Evolution to be remade, the game ended up as it did because Acclaim wanted it out an entire year early, so that's why the game was so rough. The devs behind the game were obviously very passionate about it so it was a shame, the music and concept art for it was phenomenal. Evolution deserves its own video too.

[GenerationWest]

Around the time this game was coming out, I honestly had no knowledge of Turok, and thought it was new thing, and wondered why a dinosaur shooter wasn't getting that much positive buzz.
Jump to now, years of listening to Matt talk about Turok for a decade, I am well educated (I also forgot this was one of Disney's games, that they straight up gave up on, which I still find funny today.)

[BungleJoogie]

The problem, was definitely that it didn't have enough B-list actors voice acting and eating probably a quarter of the budget.

[dlbaryonyx]

This game is a guilty pleasure of mine as I quite liked it back in the day, still do today.

[sunlitsonata]

You could organize an entire set of Wha Happun's for games that tried to start entire franchises (or sub-franchises) and fell apart after one installment.
It is just such a common fate for games or films that show up here.

[uhoh]

I loved messing around with the rag doll physics in this game to get them in the craziest position before their models froze up to get some unholy abominations to look at lmao. While not as good as other Turoks, I still liked this game for what it was

[evanhanley]

This is still a fun game. Fair play to reaching to Daryl Mandryk. I tried reaching out to him so many times but never heard from him. Mindblowing to see all that Turok 2 stuff and what the original idea for it was. It's a shame that it and Armada of the Damned were cancelled. They would have been really good.