Paramount has revealed that a new TMNT game is already in the works and its release window will be 2023. A quote from Lucy Dixon, a marketing executive at Paramount, wrote in the latest issue of Toy World that the company plans to launch a “brand-new original Triple-A game” for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The parent company of Nickelodeon has not revealed the game’s name nor the studio behind it, but the company hopes to capitalize on the commercial and critical success of the retro-styled beat-’em-up Shredder’s Revenge.
Who are the developers for this new TMNT game?
On page 170 in the September 2022 issue of Toy World magazine, Dixon notes Paramount’s interest and additional investment in TMNT games:
Collectors are being served by nostalgic gaming releases including an already-launched new retro-themed game: Shredder’s Revenge. Paramount is also planning a re-master of Konami’s The Cowabunga Collection at the end of the year and will launch a brand-new original triple-A game in 2023.
One of our first guesses would have been a sequel to the Shredder’s Revenge, but that’s not really a AAA game. A new TMNT movie called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, directed by Jeff Rowe and produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (producers of The Boys), is slated for August 4, 2023. So this unannounced TMNT game could be a tie-in to that movie; however, most AAA games require a lot of lead time in development given their long production cycles, so that casts some doubt on this possibility.
Rocksteady Studios, the creators of the Arkham Batman series, were rumored a decade ago to be working on a TMNT game. This sounds fantastic on paper given the developer’s ability to craft dark, gritty environments based on the Big Apple and heavy-hitting action-stealth gameplay (and Rocksteady is one of the main goons in TMNT). But the studio debunked the rumor within several weeks.
That said, a new TMNT game with these open-world elements would be appropriate for a AAA game, so a developer like Insomniac Games would be fantastic. At the same time, Gotham Knights is releasing this year, and it has the framework of having a roster of four characters, so WB Games Montréal is another candidate.
In other news, here is a list of games leaving Xbox Game Pass in September 2022, and Steam has removed the game Domina due to the developer’s transphobic rant.
