Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City now has a release date, and we played the game once again at GDC in a private session.
Game Info And Release Date
After multiple informative developer diaries and a tantalizing Steam Next Fest demo in February, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City releases on April 30 for PC VR, Pico, and Meta Quest 3 headsets for $24.99. Developer Cortopia (Escaping Wonderland) and publisher Beyond Frames have also released a new trailer:
If you’re somehow not familiar with the source material, TMNT follows four teenage turtles and their surrogate father, a rat named Splinter; all of whom were mutated into anthropomorphic forms by a mysterious ooze found in the sewers of New York. Splinter names the turtles after famous artists: Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael. He also trains them in the art of ninjitsu so they can defend New York and sometimes the entire world (and other worlds) against the forces of evil. That’s the basics in a half-shell.
Empire City is a VR hack and slash (and kick) action-adventure that supports co-op for up to four players. We have now been hands-on with the game three different times: a brief tour of the turtles’ sewer lair, the aforementioned Next Fest demo, and a private session with Beyond Frames CEO, Ace St. Germain, at March’s Game Developers Conference.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City Demo Leaves Us Wanting More
The Steam Next Fest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City demo leaves us wanting the full release ASAP.
Our Impressions From GDC
Note: All video and screenshots were provided by Beyond Frames. We were not allowed to film our actual gameplay.
Ace was aware I had already played the Next Fest demo when I arrived for our session, so we quickly selected our preferred turtles, Leonardo for me, and jumped right into a co-op session. There is very little friction to get into co-op with a simple terminal at the lair’s exit doubling as the lobby setup UI. He and I were connected and out of the sewers in less than two minutes. After emerging from the sewer lair, Ace pointed out a previously unknown tidbit about the game: its open world adjacent exploration of New York.
We were on a mission to take down infamous TMNT villainous mutant rhino, Rocksteady, indicated by a marker off in the distance. A signal came in over coms, indicating a crime happening somewhere in the city. Players have the option of springing into action to thwart whatever crime is taking place and earning points to be used later or staying on mission. None of these side missions are intended to be long, a few minutes at most, but they randomly respawn as you play, consistently offering new diversions that fans of open world games will be very familiar with.
Before we could get to Rocksteady, we had to parkour around the surrounding buildings to dispatch the Foot clan ninjas guarding him from the rooftops, with some of them carrying sniper rifles. The parkour was just as intuitive and fluid as I recalled from my Next Fest session. I was scaling buildings and moving with ease, even if I overshot my jumps a time or two.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City footage provided by Beyond Frames
With the Foot ninjas out of the way, we dropped into an alley to fight Rocksteady. An invincibility debug mode was turned on for this fight so I could take it all in without worrying about dying. Rocksteady’s attacks were varied, but not too difficult to understand. He swings a hammer, tries to gore you on his horn, and tosses explosives, all while constantly talking smack in a heavy New York accent. It’s a fast paced, kinetic fight that felt ripped straight from the comics or any of the numerous Ninja Turtles cartoons over the years. After this, we returned to the lair where I discovered, for the first time, a crafting station built by Donatello where health syringes and other items can be acquired to take out on missions.
When we were done, Ace further explained that Cortopia took cues from other open world games like Skyrim and the flatscreen Batman Arkham games as inspiration, albeit on a smaller AA scale. For the co-op, it drew from successful VR multiplayer experiences like Dungeons of Eternity and Walkabout, games that have successfully become a common activity of choice for groups of VR gamers. These are great examples to work from and Empire City combines elements of them all in a package I can see myself spending dozens of hours in with friends.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City screenshots provided by Beyond Frames
For me, Empire City is also reminiscent of the now-defunct studio Twisted Pixel’s Path of the Warrior and Deadpool VR, both of which featured breezy, easy-to-understand combat and a sense that the game does not take itself too seriously. They’re just plain fun and that’s what Empire City has been each time I played it. Fun. Check back for our full review of the game when it releases at the end of this month.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City releases on April 30 for Meta Quest 3 headsets, Steam, and Pico. The Meta Quest version can be pre-ordered with a 20% discount.
