Mutants Unleashed is the latest in a long line of great TMNT games released this year

If you're seeking yet another reason to hang out with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, TMNT: Mutants Unleashed is a pretty faithful continuation of the 2023 movie.

The turtles are back at in again with yet another new release this year, this time in a different type of beat-em-up that truly does showcase the flexibility of the licence.

Is it just me, or is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pretty much the best brand around when it comes to video game adaptations? Sure, those heroes in a half-shell have always been popular in this form, especially during the early 90s when arcade cabinets and beat-em-up titles were all the rage. However, in recent years I can’t help but feel like all things TMNT related have been back in full force – particularly in video games where the reptilian brothers have been subject to not one, not two, but three pretty great translations (all of wildly different genres) this year alone. This not only proves how popular the brand is right now, but also how flexible it is too. And just when you thought you’d seen it all in 2024, this week saw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed kick back as a pretty solid 3D action-platformer with a sprinkling of Persona life-sim elements. Yes, you read that correctly.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed picks up almost immediately after the events of the 2023 movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, with all four brothers riding high after saving Manhattan from the evil villain Superfly. Now out of the shadows without the need to lurk in the sewers, developer A Heart Full of Games has made the brilliant decision to showcase what the turtles get up to in the daytime as well as night. A lot of the time this means kicking mutant butt as either Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello, or Raphael – all with slightly different fighting styles and abilities – across any one of the game's beautifully drawn levels. That said, between these standard brawls you'll get the chance to pause for a while, hanging out in areas like the school or Foam café to build up your bond with new and familiar characters.

At first, I thought this was a bit of an odd (though undeniably interesting) route for Mutants Unleashed to take. After all, with the game being targeted at a younger audience, exactly how many 10-year-olds will want to have a brew with April O'Neil to learn more about her latest journalistic endeavour as opposed to grinding over the rooftops and locking swords as the turtles? But then again, while mandatory to a point, Mutants Unleashed never beats you over the head with such life sim aspects. Players are offered a set number of days in which to compete these tasks, form bonds, and then widen the available unlocks for the turtles before jumping back to the story. You only need engage with these social simulation elements as much as you want to, which is particularly useful seeing as it offers a good respite from the usual action.

Cowabunga, dudes

It also helps that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed is easily one of the most stunning TMNT game to release this year. This is largely a result of it taking huge inspiration from the movie its world is built upon, making the game feel like a comic book by implementing a sketch-based art style. True, most of the Hollywood voice talent have been replaced by sound-a-like actors, but every stage sporting scratchy, coloured-in environmental detail means that Mutants Unleashed feels like a true extension of this universe. These visuals apply to 3D brawling levels just as much as the moments where you’re given the chance to sit back and wind down.

So, then, would I say that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed is my absolute favourite TMNT video game to release in 2024? Probably not, but it comes damn close. That honour still goes to TMNT: Splintered Fate, which I expressed at the time makes no qualms about being a Hades rip-off in the sense that it robs that game’s isometric perspective, randomised structure, and sheer variety seen in your character's abilities. Setting the quality of each game aside, all of the half-shell hero appearances that have released as of late go to show just how much TMNT is a licence ripe for the video game treatment. There being four brothers each with a distinct weapon and personality certainly helps, as does the brand’s continued power to inspire newer generations of kids the more time rolls on.

Just in 2024 we’ve spent time with Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello, or Raphael in TMNT: Wrath of the Mutants, a traditional 2.5D beat-em-up that was a console port of an already great arcade game but with new bosses and stages. Then you had the hard-to-put-down TMNT: Splintered Fate, which saw the titular master kidnapped by Shredder, making for an infinitely replayable gameplay loop under the guise of a roguelike. Finally there’s Mutants Unleashed, perhaps not the most inventive 3D brawler by any means, but one that similarly proves the flexibility of the IP by attempting to make players of all ages care about the turtles by presenting myriad ways for us to spent time with them out of the action.

Simply put, it’s a very good time to be a video game fan that also loves Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And really, who is the person that this doesn’t apply to? Ever since TMNT: Shredder's Revenge launched back in 2022 as a clear throwback to the golden era of 16-bit side-scrollers, it’s as though developers have had a fire lit under them, dreaming up all sorts of ways players can yell “cowabunga!” while playing as their favourite ninja turtle. Fast forward only a few years on and we’re now literally spoilt for choice for how to do this – with most adaptations turning out good, if not genuinely great. Long may experimental endeavours like Mutants Unleashed and others continue, because I’ll keep playing TMNT games for as long as developers keep making them.