Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin
About this game
The Last Ronin comic series is genuinely one of the most compelling things TMNT has ever produced. A bleak, dystopian alternate future where three of the four brothers are dead, New York City is under fascist control by the Shredder's grandson, and the last surviving Turtle - haunted by the ghosts of his family - pursues a seemingly hopeless mission of vengeance. It sold over a million copies across its five issues, earned widespread acclaim for its darkness and emotional weight, and immediately had people asking: is this going to get a game? The answer in 2023 was "yes, from Black Forest Games under THQ Nordic." Then the Embracer Group implosion happened, Skydance took over Paramount, THQ Nordic restructured, and that version of the game quietly died without ever showing anything substantial. For a couple of years the project just sat in limbo, another promising adaptation apparently swallowed by corporate chaos. Then Summer Game Fest 2026 arrived and Paramount Games Studio - their newly unified gaming division - walked out and announced that the project is very much alive, has been completely rebuilt under new development, and is now being made by PlatinumGames. The studio behind Bayonetta, NieR: Automata, Astral Chain, and most recently Ninja Gaiden 4. The internet had the appropriate reaction. No release date has been confirmed, no gameplay footage shown - just a cinematic teaser and a lot of context provided through interviews. But what's been shared about the creative direction is genuinely exciting. Directing the game is Yohei Shimbori, a fighting game veteran known for his production work on Tekken and directing Dead or Alive 6, who reportedly walked into Paramount with a pitch built around the "pillars of Platinum action and hard-hitting, high-octane combat." The story side is being handled by Shawn Kittelsen, who wrote Mortal Kombat 11 and Injustice 2 - two of the most narratively sophisticated fighting game stories of the last decade. That's a combination that suggests Paramount is taking the source material seriously rather than just slapping a licence on a generic brawler. Kittelsen's comments about the emotional angle are the most interesting detail so far. He described the pitch as being about "the emotional through-line, the seasons of life" - connecting to how TMNT fans who grew up with the Turtles have moved from simpler, more innocent times into a much darker and more complicated world. That's almost a meta-commentary on what The Last Ronin itself does. The story has always worked because it's fundamentally about grief, isolation, and purpose after loss. If the game captures that alongside the combat, it could be something really special. The project is confirmed for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. No release window beyond a rough expectation of 2027. Platinum's previous TMNT entry - Mutants in Manhattan in 2016 - was a game that Paramount Games' Shawn Kittelsen acknowledged bluntly "did not get the kind of support that the Turtles deserve or that Platinum deserves." That self-awareness about the failure mode of the previous collaboration is a good sign that people involved understand what went wrong and why this one needs to be different. I'll admit I came to The Last Ronin comic late - a friend basically made me read it during a long train journey and I finished it in one sitting, which I can't say for many things. The way it handles Michelangelo specifically, stripping away his entire identity as the funny, carefree brother and forcing him to carry weapons and purposes that were never meant to be his - it's genuinely moving in a way that feels earned rather than gratuitous. A Platinum action game built around that character arc, with hard-hitting combat and a story that understands the weight of who he is in this moment, could be extraordinary. The trailer might have been sparse on details, but the pedigree assembled around this project is enough to make the wait feel worth it. This is the most interesting TMNT game announcement in years. Possibly ever.
