Beat It Back to the ’90s with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, a New Retro-Style Beat-‘Em-Up

Dotemu, the publisher and developer behind last year’s retro beat-em-up Streets of Rage 4, has joined up with developer Tribute Games, a team consisting of folks who worked on Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game while at Ubisoft, to release a new installment in the long-running Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series of beat-em-ups.

The new game, titled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, is being made in collaboration with Nickelodeon, and looks awesome, to be completely honest. The announcement came by way of an animated trailer showing off the turtles fighting tons of familiar foes, like Bebop, Rocksteady and Shredder. Additionally, we get to see April O’Neil and Master Splinter join in on some of the fun against Foot ninjas and robots.

As an aside, falling back into saying things like “Foot ninjas” has me feeling like a kid on Saturday morning and I’m entirely here for it.

Speaking of taking me way back, the game’s pixel art style and the character designs seem meant to invoke the classic TV adaptation from the ‘80s. The game’s Steam listing goes so far as to say that “Every character, vehicle, weapon, item, and background is directly inspired by the 1987 TV show, making you feel like you hopped into the television.”

The game is a four-player brawler just like the classic arcade games that have clearly inspired it, and is set to take the players through “a righteous range of timeless TMNT locations.” The turtles themselves will not only sport their iconic weapons, but individualized movesets and even run cycles, and yes, Mikey’s panicked run is the best of the lot. He’s always been the best brother and you’re all wrong to think otherwise.

While no release date was given, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge will be coming to PC and a nebulous assortment of “consoles” when it does come out. In the meantime, I’ve got to get back into TMNT immediately.