ONE of the longest-running and most iconic pieces of pop culture entertainment, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, is a core facet of millennial identity.
Almost everyone who was born or grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s is familiar with the turtles and their rat sensei.
Created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, the Turtles first made their mark on the pages of comic books in 1983 before progressing to television, film, and then video games.
Like its half-shell heroes, the franchise is an enduring piece of entertainment.
In the 34 years since the first TMNT game, there have been a lot of video games about the turtles, with each game having its own set of fans. However, a constant between each game is that they are wholly targeted towards children, with a much smaller target audience of fans in their 30s.
At the end of the day, the property was conceived with the idea of appealing to young kids.
But what if the franchise deliberately expanded in a more adult direction?
From four to one
On Aug 11, the THQ Nordic Showcase officially revealed the teaser trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin.
Currently in development by Black Forest Games, the game will adapt the five-issue The Last Ronin miniseries that began in 2020.
In a future, war-torn New York, three of the four Ninja Turtles are dead. The remaining Turtle, unnamed until the end of the first comic and armed with the weapons of his brothers, wages a bloody one-turtle war against the Foot Clan to get revenge for his slain brothers and to recover his family’s lost honour.
The miniseries was conceived by the original TMNT creators, Eastman and Laird, along with Tom Waltz, Ben Bishop, Isaac, and Esau Escorza.
Full-fledged blockbuster game
In a March interview with Polygon, Paramount Global Games and Emerging Media senior vice president Doug Rosen claimed that the game will be a single-player action-RPG similar to the recent God of War games.
Compared to previous TMNT games, The Last Ronin would indicate the franchise is heading towards AAA-gaming standards, with the upcoming game being a fast-paced action game in third-person.
On top of that, the AAA game is expected to be fairly faithful to the source material, which means it’s aiming for an older audience, though it’s not yet known whether the game will be a hard T-rated game for teenagers or an M-rated one for adults.
TMNT: The Last Ronin is currently slated to release on PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Series X|S.
