The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are finally getting a first-person video game, and it's a VR game. Both novel approaches to the Heroes in a Half-Shell seem to work quite well for TMNT: Empire City, though, based on our initial first impressions. Previewed by Travis Northup

IGN's hands-on preview of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City explores how the franchise's rooftop combat, acrobatics, and melee action translate naturally into VR. The demo allows players to embody each Turtle, using their iconic weapons and abilities, while enjoying immersive environments and character-driven banter.

The preview notes strong fundamentals and an engaging art style true to the TMNT brand, though it highlights that only the tutorial and a brief boss fight were available. While the upgrade system and potential for four-player co-op are promising, the full campaign's depth and multiplayer scaling remain to be seen.

Empire City shows how perfect the Ninja Turtles might be for VR

It's kind of insane that I never realized how perfectly Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would work as a VR game. VR action games famously feature loads of jumping and climbing, which our turt bros do a whole bunch of on Manhattan rooftops. Sneaking around to do melee action and having to learn how to parry and dodge incoming attacks is also something the reptilian heroes are known for that has been done well in many VR games. And because these heroes in a half shell appear most commonly as cartoons, you don't have to worry about shooting for photorealistic graphics and the technical VR bottlenecks that sometimes come with it. In other words, why in the heck did it take us so long to get this pizza-powered quartet into a VR game? No matter the reason, I'm glad it's finally happening with TMNT Empire City, and the 15 minute demo I played was enough to sell me on this tubular action-adventure. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Empire City is exactly the kind of game you'd expect from the titular Masked Heroes. I spent my time fighting members of the Foot Clan as each member of the TMNT crew, including their iconic weapons of choice like Leonardo's Katanas and Donatello's Bow Staff, running and jumping across city skylines in pursuit of justice, and hanging out back in my sewer base and eating pizza. Doing all of that in VR is exactly as fun as it sounds, meaning it's super fun, and it's especially amusing to look down at your turtle body and remember, oh yeah, I'm an anthropomorphic mutated reptile. Unfortunately, the section I played was limited entirely to the tutorial, so I was mostly just learning the ropes, like how to hack into electronic devices as Donatello, since he does machines, or how to perform parries on those pesky, shredder-following Foot Clan. The fundamentals were definitely strong, as I was grinning ear to ear pretty much the whole time, but I'll be curious to see if Empire City can build on that to keep it interesting across an entire campaign. For example, I only got to fight one boss at the very end of this introductory mission, and it lasted all of, I kid you not, 5 seconds as I dodged her opening attack, and then wailed on her until she tapped out. Obviously, this fight was also a part of the tutorial, so it's hard to tell if things will get more challenging, but here's hoping. Something that would seem to indicate a deeper level of challenge is the fact that back at the base, there's a whole menu of upgrades to deal with. None of these were unlockable in the build I played from what I could tell, but it reminded me a bit of the upgrade system in Half-Life Alyx, where you're collecting parts throughout levels, then funnel it all into a machine to craft certain upgrades for your character. It's also just great to see them using Donatello's propensity for crafting gadgets brought to life via all the junk he stuffs in his pockets along the way, which his brothers made fun of him for doing, of course. Which leads me to one of my favorite parts of the demo, how perfectly Ninja Turtles it was. The banter between the brothers and their recognizable idiosyncrasies left me smiling, whether it was Leonardo's tendency to be way too serious all the time, Michelangelo's wisecracks, or Raphael's intensity and impatience. The unique weapon aside, I never forgot which of the brothers I was because Empire City did such a good job of reminding me with its banter that was completely on point with the surprisingly good writing for which the series is known. I could easily imagine a world where this thing felt like a re-skinned ninja game that felt completely generic, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. Huge relief. They also do a really good job capturing the comic book Saturday morning cartoon art style, with environments that look cel-shaded and goofy voice performances that are over the top and amusing. Sure lots of the textures are fairly undetailed, but that works pretty perfectly with the straight from a comic book vibe that this game is clearly shooting for. I could easily see myself spending a lot of time just hanging out in this world, exploring and fighting alongside friends, which reminds me, will there be skateboarding in this? Why haven't they let me skateboard yet? One pretty huge thing I didn't get to see in action is how this will all work in 4 player co-op. I can only imagine how much of a blast it's going to be to roll through with a full shell squad smacking enemies around, but the section of the demo I played felt pretty designed for a single player and it's a bit difficult to imagine how this kind of gameplay might scale up for 4 player bouts. Presumably there'd need to be many more enemies and fewer linear paths than the ones I crept through to make it work. Also I can only imagine how silly it'll look to have teammates running around as big ol' green cartoon characters while swinging around nunchucks. I'll still need to see a fair bit more of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Empire City before I can speak definitively on it, but so far I'm pretty stoked by the potential here and am absolutely flabbergasted that it took us this long to get a first-person TMNT game. For more previews of the biggest upcoming games, don't miss our recent hands-on looks at Nioh 3 and Dragon Quest VII Reimagined. And for everything else in the world of video games, stick with IGN.

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