‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles VR’ Overview – Completely Radical Beat ’em Up Motion

Whereas I don’t assume anyone was actually asking for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles recreation in VR, a lot much less a story-driven marketing campaign with optionally available co-op: it’s right here. And I’m so glad it’s, as a result of it’s completely radical.

Developer: Cortopia Studios
Writer: Past Frames Leisure
Out there On: Quest, SteamVR , Pico
Reviewed On: Quest 3
Launch Date: April thirtieth, 2026
Value: $25

Gameplay

There tends to be a standard mantra when branded VR video games come out: “it’s alright, but it surely’s in all probability solely going to enchantment to followers.”

I don’t assume that’s the case with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire Metropolis. Positive, it’s an unabashed love letter to traditional late ’80s, early ’90s TMNT—which completely appeals to me as an enormous Turtles fan rising up—but it surely’s additionally simply occurs to be probably the greatest informal beat’em ups I’ve performed in VR thus far. Keep on with me, as a result of I’ll clarify.

I’m (and ceaselessly shall be) a fan of Leonardo. Possibly that claims one thing about my character. Regardless of the case, you possibly can guess who I selected for my playthrough; my man Leo with the twin katanas.

Though you possibly can technically change turtles at any time through the marketing campaign, though you’ll additionally lose costly character upgrades when do, incentivizing you to deal with mastering a single weapon, be it Raph’s sais, Don’s bo workers, or Mikey’s nunchakus. Extra on upgrades beneath.

Anyway, right here’s the narrative: set in New York Metropolis in a post-Shredder world, you and the boys try to navigate the resultant energy vacuum. Shredder’s former underlings are jockeying to be probably the most overtly evil dangerous dude, culminating in an unlikely alliance. It’s fundamental Turtle fare, together with missions throughout New York’s numerous iconic boroughs to do issues like retrieve high-tech batteries, retrieve elements for robots, retrieve … nicely, quite a lot of stuff.

As it’s, the sport is constructed throughout a number of key areas which you’ll entry through the massive overland map of New York, or extra shortly through the sewers conveniently connecting the whole lot to your Turtle Lair. A few of the motion occurs out on these metropolis streets, though a majority of the massive narrative beats occur in warehouses—primarily the sport’s dungeons.

To be sincere, I don’t actually begrudge TMNT: Empire Metropolis for the heavy emphasis on fetch quests. A slate of VR-native puzzles, enjoyable and memorable boss battles, and armies of Foot Clan troopers present sufficient selection to maintain you guessing.

As for fight, enemies embrace common Foot troopers, Foot with an unblockable lance, heavy Foot with unblockable smash strikes, crossbow Foot, machine gun Foot, elite Foot with all the above plus a greater well being and injury stats … the record goes on.

It’s a very good selection, though the meat of the sport is in boss battles, every of which has their very own quirk. Bosses aren’t very robust to beat, and most solely have two phases, though I nonetheless had enjoyable blasting round and determining assault patterns—you already know, beat’em up stuff.

Granted, when you do end up in a decent spot and get killed, (or relatively “knocked out”, you’ll merely respawn the place you had been final to proceed the struggle, making it a reasonably low stakes gameplay expertise. I can think about the identical isn’t true for multiplayer, though I nonetheless should pop in when it formally launches to say for certain.

There’s additionally no actual penalty for not following the sport’s personal logical fight stream, the place you parry strikes (with a yellow weapon flash) and dodge unblockable strikes (coloured purple). I discovered myself naturally pinballing round and slashing wildly till everybody died, which works simply as nicely generally.

Whereas quite a lot of the sport focuses on beat’em up encounters, there’s a stealth component that makes issues a lot simpler—possibly even too straightforward at instances. You may technically throw your weapon and immediately kill most unalerted Foot, making it pretty easy to weed out low stage guys from afar so you possibly can tackle heavies on the bottom, or ignore them totally if you would like and head on to your subsequent goal. Your weapon will respawn in your shoulder-mounted holsters, so that you principally have infinite ammo.

If that had been it, I’d say you’ve obtained your self a fairly full Turtles recreation proper there already. However there’s extra. You may also improve your skills as you go, that are achieved in three principal methods: discovering blueprints so you possibly can 3D print consumables like throwing stars and well being vials, discovering uncommon gadgets to print ‘Capacity’ cubes, which helps you to do issues like double leap or quick motion, and upgrading your characters stage, which unlocks stuff like extra well being bars and skill dice slots. It’s a extremely good quantity of stuff that can assist you stability your Turtle.

Nevertheless it’s not totally free. All of this takes scrap, which you may be consistently hoovering up as you wind by warehouses, sewers, and New York alleyways. Within the latter half of the sport, the sheer quantity of scrap you discover turns into greater than a bit overwhelming—in all probability solely interesting to die exhausting completionists who wish to improve the entire Turtle workforce, and never only one character.

However wait, there’s extra. There are additionally gads of discovered audio tapes you could hearken to optionally for extra story (not a should), in addition to a ton of easter eggs, in addition to optionally available time trials all through the sport, supplying you with loads of causes to discover and search the whole lot.

Whereas I actually favored TMNT: Empire Metropolis, my solely actual grievance the sport’s crime ranking system, which requires you to maintain crime underneath one hundred pc all through the overland metropolis map. You do that by shutting down Foot Clan outposts—often three troopers defending a easy puzzle—or by stopping lively crimes, which periodically come over the radio and offer you a visible waypoint.

Actually, all through my six hours enjoying the single-player marketing campaign, I by no means even tried to maintain it underneath one hundred pc; I might simply randomly run throughout baddies and gank them when handy and it by no means managed to creep as much as 100. Nonetheless, these encounters obtained previous actual fast although, and also you by no means appear to get something really good out of those encounters anyway, making for primarily ineffective padding you could principally ignore.

That stated, one factor that I believe will should be patched put up launch is the flexibility to cheese sure bosses by hiding on excessive buildings and throwing your foremost weapon to knock down well being. It’s unsportsmanlike, and I positively did it as soon as on one of many tougher bosses to offer me a preventing probability.

Immersion

Developer Cortopia Studios has completely nailed the Turtle vibe; the whole lot from the cartoony story, voice appearing, cell-shaded comedian e-book type visuals, and the large overland map that’s surprisingly detailed (even on Quest). Actually, I don’t wish to understate any of these items, as I discovered manufacturing stage to be surprisingly a lot increased than the $25 price ticket suggests.

That stated, there are some issues that make the sport rather less immersive than it may very well be. Empire Metropolis could be very UI heavy. Most of the choices may be present in your wrist-mounted watch—a wise method to symbolize 2D UI. Nonetheless a lot of the motion is dominated by objective-based markers, which may make you’re feeling such as you’re being led by the nostril a bit. True exploration is barely actually achieved between missions, and even then, you’ll be assaulted by crime goal markers that flash yellow and embrace what number of meters you might be away. In flip, I by no means as soon as appeared on the map in my watch, just because it was basically ineffective.

There are additionally quite a lot of doorways you possibly can’t open, objects you possibly can’t choose up or function in any method, and even some ledges you’re not speculated to climb, which makes it a little bit little bit of a guessing recreation at first. Granted, inaccessible doorways often have a giant ‘NO ENTRY’ signal, and faux ledges are often fairly excessive, though it’s nonetheless a disparity in what the person expects to work together with, and what they really can work together with.

Even then, really openable doorways are a ache to function, as they solely react to your hand awkwardly attempting to push it ahead, and never your weapon or remainder of your physique so that you may in any other case faucet or shove your method by. That stated, the shoulder-mounted weapon holsters and waist-mounted stock all labored very nicely, and felt fast and pure to make use of.

Consolation

It is a recreation that focuses closely on operating quick, leaping excessive, and kicking exhausting. And contemplating the circumstances, the studio has achieved lots to verify all of that is pretty comfy.

Should you’re not used to frenetic synthetic motion although, it’s possible you’ll wish to take it straightforward and never stack too lots of these strikes without delay. Nonetheless, fight and map traversal requires all of these issues to some extent, so it’s greatest to play in small bites when you’re anxious about movement illness.

Notably, bumping into stage geometry can ship you sliding or smashing in reverse instructions at instances, which may be uncomfortable when you’re dedicated to going full-bore and slashing on the quickest tempo doable.