‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants In Manhattan’ Screenshots Leak Ahead Of Announcement

Activision and Platinum Games appear to be relying on leaks to market Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. A set of screenshots hit early Saturday morning for the still unannounced action title, which finally reveal the Turtles looks along with some of the enemies and overall art style.

The leaked screenshot, captured by All Games Beta, does confirm the game the art style will borrow heavily from the work by IDW Comics artist, Mateus Santolouco. This was first outed by a previous leak that revealed the cover art for the game and also confirmed villains such as Shredder, Bebop, Rocksteady, and Krang. Prior to that, an Australian Ratings Board listing revealed the existence of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan.

Now, here’s the catch. The Turtle models used for Mutants in Manhattan appear to be the same as the models added to Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 in an update to that game in December 2015. At first blush, it is possible Platinum Games created the models and allowed developer Robomodo to borrow them to use as a sort of stealth promotion technique.

The art style in Platinum’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game makes heavy use of cel-shading to bring out the comic book look. Additionally, each of the Turtles’ weapons are highlighted with a colored glow. This is presumably a gameplay mechanic to make it easier for players to distinguish the four characters from one another beyond the headbands. It remains to be seen if this has any functionality beyond character identification.

The leaked Mutants in Manhattan screenshots do confirm that all four Turtles can be on screen at the same time. The previously leaked Xbox LIVE Achievements confirmed that online co-op will be an option for the latest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action game along with the ability to play alone and switch between all four heroes in a half shell.

The screenshots also give the first in-game look at Bebop along with Foot Soldiers and a Rock Soldier. This points to a plentiful roster of bad guys and villains for the Turtles to pound on throughout the game.

As it stands, there is still nothing official about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan yet. The most useful information thus far has been from the Achievements mentioned above. It signals a vastly different project from Platinum Games’ previous licensed titles through Activision such as Transformers: Devastation and The Legend of Korra. It will still be heavy on action, but will take an open-world approach in addition to the focus on co-op play and the ability to switch between Turtles.

This marks Platinum Games’ third licensed title with Activision. 2014’s The Legend of Korra was Platinum’s first effort under the publisher’s umbrella, and the small-ish digital-only title worked in terms of combat, but its lack of depth, story, and replayability gave it mixed to negative marks in the Metacritic review round-up.

Platinum followed up with Transformers: Devastation at the start of October 2015. The title turned into a bit of a sleeper hit, as it pushed all the right nostalgia buttons by bringing back the character models and art style from the original 1980s cartoon, along with the original voices of Optimus Prime and Megatron, while mixing in a wide range of combo attacks from different combos.

There is obviously no release date for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan yet since the game has not even been officially announced. A 2016 release is a safe assumption. It is just a matter of when.

[Image via All Games Beta]