Originally Turok started as a comic book character but over the years and with the different incarnations there had been several individuals who had taken the Turok mantle.
The first Turok was a young Native American who, with his brother Andar, end up trapped in a Lost Valley filled with dinosaurs and they try to escape. Because of the different reboots, the origins of original Turok are quite vague and difficult to track as many of the first writers gave different ideas about Turok origins, but every one of them wrote one element in common, the dinosaurs.
When the character was bought by Valiant, there was another reboot, now Turok and his brother Andar were 18th Century Native Americans, and by some cosmic abnormality they ended in the Lost Land who was ruled by a crazy tyrant named Mothergod. In the Valiant comic’s adaptation, the dinosaur element was seen again as the previous ones.
The comics influenced the creation of the video games; elements that were present in the comics were also seen in the videogames. Characters like Andar or Mothergod were completely discarded and Turok himself was a re-imagined at some extent, he still was Native American but now his “real name” was Tal’ Set and Turok was merely a nickname.
Mothergod was reinvented as male cyborg called “The Campaigner” but there were little details about the identity of the new main enemy.
Like it was said before, several people had taken the mantle of Turok. The first one was Turok, Son of Stone, a pre-Columbian Native American; and the implicit hero of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (even if his name was changed to Tal’ Set) and Turok 2. The second set of individuals who took the mantle of Turok were Joseph and Danielle Fireseed descendants of the original Turok and the last ones to be the heroes before the reboot.
The one, who said the simpler the better, was right. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter had been one of the few games in history who don’t have a complete background story. The story of the game is given in two parts, a small part is given in the game and the other one is given briefly in the manual where we learn that Turok is a time-travelling warrior who is trying to stop an evil guy called “The Campaigner”, a cyborg who has given intelligence to the dinosaurs to help him to get the Chronocepter, the weapon who can help him to win complete control over the universe and time.
Beside the information given, there are no more pieces of facts about the game background, as there are no dialogues at all in the entire game, beside the subtitles that help the player to move between areas but those don’t give any information at all.
We can give a five over five in story, because it’s refreshing to imagine the missing pieces of the story.