Seeds of Evil features a single-player campaign consisting of six levels and a multiplayer mode where various players can compete against each other in several game types.

As Turok, the player can run, jump, climb ladders, swim and dive underwater for a limited period of time.

[4] The player can carry an unlimited number of weapons, ranging from bows and arrows to pistols, rifles, a shotgun, a grenade launcher, a flamethrower, a speargun, and more advanced weapons such as the Cerebral Bore, which fires a homing projectile capable of latching onto enemy's heads, killing them by drilling into their skulls and exploding.

If Turok's health is fully depleted, the player loses one Life Force point and has to continue the game from a previous checkpoint.

The six Primagen Keys unlock the gate to the final boss in the hub area and require the player to use talismans to collect them.

[8] Seeds of Evil begins with the new Turok, Joshua Fireseed, appearing through a portal to face a female alien named Adon (/ˈeɪdɒn/ AY-don).

She explains he has been called by the Elders of the Lost Land, the Lazarus Concordance, to defeat the Primagen (/ˈpraɪmədʒɛn/ PRY-mə-jen), a powerful alien entity that was imprisoned in the wreckage of his own Lightship after attempting to witness the creation of the universe.

The destruction of these Energy Totems would allow the Primagen to escape the confines of his Lightship, and the resulting shockwave would destroy the known universe.

As Joshua defeats the Primagen's armies through the Lost Land and acquires ancient magical powers from sacred talisman chambers, a mysterious entity calling itself Oblivion attempts to thwart his quest by creating false copies of the talisman chamber portals that lead to areas populated by its servants, the Flesh Eaters.

At the end of the game, Adon states that the mysterious force which conspired against Joshua during his quest still exists, setting the stage for the sequel Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion.

Seeds of Evil was developed by Iguana Entertainment with a team roughly the same size as that of Dinosaur Hunter, which was composed of 18 people.

[10] Development started before Dinosaur Hunter was released and preliminary work on level and enemy design finished by July 1997.

[10] In conjunction with the Expansion Pak, this mode allows the game to be played at a resolution of 640x480 pixels, a technical accomplishment for the Nintendo 64 at the time.

Nevertheless, when cartridges prices fell, the storage was increased to 16MB, allowing the development team to add a multiplayer mode.

According to Dienstbier, this freedom of movement "means that [players] have a lot less predictable death match play because [they] have far more possible escape routes within each level".

[13] Seeds of Evil was originally planned to ship in October 1998 for Acclaim Entertainment's "TurOctober" event, but the release date was pushed back to November.

[18] It was pushed back again to December due to minor bugs preventing the game from receiving Nintendo's approval.

[26] The port was developed from the ground up by a studio based in Salt Lake City and supports GameSpy for online multiplayer.

[27] Seeds of Evil received "generally favorable" reviews according to Metacritic and sold 1.4 million copies by January 1999.

[34] Nintendo Power remarked that, in high-resolution mode, Seeds of Evil was "as stunning" as the most sophisticated computer games of the time,[34] saying that "not even the crisp reality of GoldenEye 007 or the rich fantasy of Zelda looks this cool.

[31] Although the graphics were widely praised for their details, the game's inconsistent frame rate and intense distance fog were generally criticized.

[37][39][32][31] Peer Schneider of IGN said that, unlike its predecessor, Seeds of Evil "forgoes framerate for detail so often [that] some gamers will definitely be put off by the choppiness".

[35] GameSpot said that the soundtrack is "well suited to the game and never intrusive",[35] while Victor Lucas of The Electric Playground described it as "suspenseful, dynamic and always adrenaline charged".

[15][31] Game Revolution highlighted the long and complex levels, but admitted that players may "[run] around in circles for hours trying to figure out where to go next.

[29] Tal Blevins of IGN criticized the controls for its limited support of keyboard functions and the graphics for their distance fog, which was not common in computer games of the time.

[45] It features enhanced graphics, improved artificial intelligence of enemies, the option to quick-warp to previously visited portals, and a new multiplayer mode called Last Turok Standing.