Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered Review

"The Child!"

Campaign

December 10, 2023 at 7:59pm
By Jason Stettner

It was certainly a surprise to see that Turok 3 was going to be remastered. I had figured after the first two games and the years that passed that we had gotten all we were going to get from this series. At least from a touched upon, modernized perspective. With that, here we are talking about Shadow of Oblivion.

A game that left players on one wild cliff-hang so many decades ago and did to me as well just the other week. Anyways, this third entry in the series follows the lead character being succeeded by a possible of two perspectives.

A new Turok must rise and you either play as a late 20’s sister or teenage brother. Both have a unique style and approach to the battle. It adds a neat layer to the story as well. Things have gone bad and you need to head out into some revamped familiar places alongside fresh ones to battle back against Oblivion.

It’s definitely the most linear of the series and with that shortish. For a shooter game it’s not bad, at the same time with the multiplayer having been removed this does seem like a smaller package. I also had an issue where with one area a keycard didn’t appear and that left me perplexed until I looked up realizing the game was bugged. A shame as the Nightdive games are typically so polished. There is some room for replayability though, with choosing a differing character in varying difficulties or also maybe as another fun surprise.

Gameplay

It’s your standard first person shooter. You’ll get an array of weapons, some truly creative and you’ll be taking out enemies. There are various generic troops and the odd dinosaur along the way as well. It’s not too difficult to get around with some secrets, but alas while being linear I could see some maybe getting a tad lost at times.

There’s not much extra to see if you look around, but you might find an extra weapon or two along the way if you do. This is a remastered effort but aesthetically it’s not massively overhauled. It does retain that original vision and does look better.

I was just expecting more on the Xbox Series X since this wasn’t even optimized for the platform as the original release material noted higher frame rates. So it’s a 4k resolution at 60fps which looks great, just expected them to take it further. There are many other visual options to adjust as well, if you want to.

The Conclusion

Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered is a nice conclusion to the upgraded Turok series and I appreciate that I was able to play this trilogy, I am however left waiting for more just like many were ever so many years ago.

I did find this to be a smaller package though considering the removal of the multiplayer element and that somewhat short campaign. I don’t expect anything super long for shooters, but this one does feel a bit simplistic just due to its original design I suppose.

I was slightly disappointed that I had a progression issue that really took me some time to figure out. It looks better for sure, it can be fun though it’s not quite as exciting as the two that preceded it. Still, a nice conclusion and I’m glad this exists for a new audience to experience it.

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Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered Review on Xbox Series X
Review Code Provided by ID@Xbox

Rating Overall: 6.5