Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City Preview

Swords and VR games go hand-in-hand, so it was only a matter of time before the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles got their own VR game, and it’s well in development if this early taste of first-person action that I got to try is anything to go by. That’s right, I played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City.

As a fan of the 80s cartoon, I was immediately curious about which era this game was set in. After all, there has been a new Turtles cartoon every four or five years for a couple of decades now, and IDW has been printing comics about them for going on 15 years. Well, to answer that question, it’s not set in any particular era, but leans heavily into IDW comics. At least it’s not based on the mid-2010s live-action movies, yikes…

I got to play through the turtorial (get it?) and check out the sewer hideout, but nothing else because the game is still early in development. So, I got to play as each turtle for a section, doing their “thing”, then picked one to do a boss fight.

Each character has a unique weapon — katana, sai, nunchaku, and bō staff — which makes them feel different to fight as. A really nice touch is that you can hold the katana and sai in different ways (at the push of a button), and the nunchaku and bō staff can be wielded two-handedly.

There are items to pick up, such as grenades and shuriken; hopefully they can be stored by an unlocked upgrade later, and were just laid out for the first level. Your character wears a watch showing their health, so you know when to grab a health kit.

The first thing you’ll notice, however, is that while developer Cortopia Studios has put some effort into how each of the different weapons is wielded, they haven’t quite managed to overcome the “thrash around until it’s dead” approach. Sorry, not dead (despite the splurt of blood), just knocked out by my pointy stabby thing.

One of the most promising aspects of Empire City is the ability to grab surfaces to pull yourself along. Pipes, windowsills, that sort of thing. I’ve played climbing games in VR before, and always wanted to launch myself from one handhold to another. With the, shall we say, generous physics in this game, I can imagine climbing a building in seconds.

The turtle lair is going to be a nice place to hang out with your co-op partners, with a dart board, basketball hoop, and each character’s area. There is a teleporter to an area for upgrades and crafting as well. It also appears to act as the hub, with blocked tunnels presumably opening up as you play the game.

Everything looks suitably cartoony, the voice acting was phenomenal, and I have no complaints about the music that I heard.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City looks promising, though hopefully the first boss won’t get stuck in a wall and be unable to hurt me while I jump kick them, once the game is a bit more finished. It’s coming to Meta Quest and PC in 2026.