If there’s one thing that would evoke images of an earlier time in media, it’s the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They’re zany, they’re kind of ridiculous, and they’re classic enough to have a bunch of games on consoles that today’s kids don’t even know existed. NES? It’s practically a floppy disk to kids these days. Needless to say, the heroes in a half shell have been around the block: they’re old, and attempts to reboot them over the years have been met with mixed results.
That said, fans may be surprised to learn that there’s a new TMNT game for PC and consoles on the way, and it’s actually inspired by the beloved 1991 title “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time.” No, it isn’t a remake or remaster of that game, but much like it, the upcoming “Shredder’s Revenge” will be a side-scrolling brawler, being developed by Tribute Games and published by Dotemu. We know that it will have a release on both PC and consoles, but we don’t actually know exactly which consoles. It could be all of them, or it could be exclusive to one. That info just hasn’t been revealed yet.
Because this game is focusing on the retro appeal of older TMNT games and series, it goes all-in on those aspects. It will be using retro pixel art graphics, and the designs of the turtles will be faithful to their 1987 aesthetics. Classic enemies like Krang and Shredder (of course) will appear, and players will visit many locations that are important to the universe, even including Dimension X. There is a Steam Page you can visit up already, but no price is listed there.
As one may expect considering the old-school design approach being taken with the game, Shredder’s Revenge will be capable of a four-player co-op as you utilize unique combos, skills, and moves for each of our heroic turtles. Story mode and vehicles of some sort have been mentioned as being part of the game as well.
If you’re curious as to what games Dotemu developed or published in the past, you can take a look at Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap and Streets of Rage 4. Tribute Games has worked on many retro-inspired titles, including Flinthook, Panzer Paladin, and Mercenary Kings. Some members of the studio also worked on the 2007 GameBoy Advance TMNT game. That said, we feel comfortable saying that this developer and publisher combo probably knows what they are doing on this front.
The last time we had a TMNT game on consoles was 2016, Mutants in Manhattan. That game was made by PlatinumGames and published by Activision. While it was also a beat-’em-up game, it was of course made by a completely different team of people, so we can’t really look at it as an indicator of anything we may see in Shredder’s Revenge. Either way, it has been some time since we’ve seen a TMNT game, though we don’t know the release date for this new one. Better to know that it is on the way, however!
