The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been smashing Foot Clan skulls for over forty years now through comics, Saturday morning cartoons, big-budget movies, and way more video games than anyone can count. But here’s the wild part: until 2026, the heroes in a half shell had never actually shown up in VR.
That all changed when Cortopia Studios and publisher Beyond Frames Entertainment dropped Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City on April 30, 2026. It hit Meta Quest, SteamVR, and Pico all at once for $25 and suddenly we could literally become a turtle.
The Quick Facts
Before diving deep, here’s everything you need to know at a glance:
- Developer: Cortopia Studios.
- Publisher: Beyond Frames Entertainment.
- Platforms: Meta Quest, SteamVR (PC VR), Pico.
- Release Date: April 30, 2026.
- Price: $24.99 (yes, really).
- Genre: First-person VR action-adventure / hack-and-slash.
- Players: Solo or up to 4-player co-op.
- Length: Roughly 6 hours for the main story.
Story & Setting
The story kicks off right after Shredder bites the dust. With the big bad gone, the Foot Clan splits into two warring factions both fighting tooth and nail for control of the city. And of course, our four green heroes get dragged right into the middle of it.
What The Story Gets Right:
- It’s an original, standalone tale you don’t need a TMNT PhD to follow along.
- Tons of fan-service moments sneak in, including April O’Neil, Master Splinter, and a whole rogues’ gallery of classic villains.
- The tone absolutely nails that late-’80s, early-’90s TMNT vibe goofy, cartoony, and just the right amount of edgy.
Where It Stumbles:
- The plot feels a little thin, stretched across roughly six hours of gameplay.
- Boss fights are all over the place Rocksteady, for example, has some seriously inconsistent difficulty spikes.
Gaeplay & Combat
You get to choose any of the four brothers, and each one brings their own signature flair:
- Leonardo – dual katanas (think precision and balance).
- Donatello – bo staff (all about range).
- Raphael – twin sai (aggressive, in-your-face brawler).
- Michelangelo – nunchaku (fast, flashy, and chaotic).
Yes, you can swap turtles whenever you want but here’s the catch: you’ll lose your expensive upgrades when you switch. So really, the smart play is to pick a favorite and stick with him.
What’s Fun About The Combat:
- A solid parry system, unblockable attacks, smoke bombs, and ninja stars keep things interesting.
- Each weapon genuinely feels different when you swing it.
- Donnie’s workbench lets you craft and tweak gear between missions, which is a nice touch.
What’s Not So Great:
- Hits often feel strangely weightless more Nintendo Wii waggle than modern VR brawler.
- It’s way too easy to just flail your controllers instead of actually using the cool tactical systems.
- Foot grunts go down so fast that you rarely need the fancy stuff anyway.
Visuals & Art Style
This is where the game seriously shines. Cortopia went all-in on a comic-book look bold cel shading, thick black outlines, the whole package. It honestly looks like you’re playing inside a TMNT comic panel.
- Character designs are spot-on instantly recognizable but with a fresh, modern twist.
- The Turtles’ underground lair doubles as your hub, and it’s packed with personality: pizza boxes, training gear, dirty laundry the whole “four teenage mutants live here” vibe.
- Performance on Quest 3 is genuinely impressive given the visual style.
- A few oddities pop up floating loot, occasional pop-in but nothing that ruins the experience.
Co-op: Where the Game Really Comes Alive
If there’s one thing every reviewer agrees on, it’s this: co-op is the heart and soul of Empire City.
- Teaming up with three friends as cartoon turtles is pure comedy gold especially because the facial animations actually sync with your real voice. Watching your buddy’s turtle mouth flap while he talks trash? Never gets old.
- Co-op also smooths out the grindy bits and makes combat more fun.
- Little side activities time trials, basketball hoops, goofing off in the lair turn it into a proper hangout game.
Movement & Exploring the City
- Stick-based locomotion with both smooth and snap turning options.
- The parkour system is genuinely one of the best parts of the game wall-running, climbing, swinging across rooftops never gets boring.
- The open-world map is way more detailed than a $25 VR game has any right to be, especially on Quest hardware.
A heads-up for new VR players: With all that fast stick movement, climbing, and combat happening at once, this is NOT a beginner-friendly VR experience. Veterans will be fine.Newbies might need a barf bag.
Technical Issues (Let’s Be Real)
No review is honest without flagging the bugs, so here we go:
- Enemy AI sometimes gets stuck in walls and floors.
- A few loading hiccups including reports of the tutorial flat-out failing on first launch.
- Quest markers occasionally break and refuse to trigger.
- A patch will almost certainly clean most of this up, but launch-window players should brace for some rough edges.
The Good and the Bad
What’s Awesome
- Gorgeous comic-book visuals straight out of the source material
- Parkour is a blast every single time
- Four-player co-op is hilarious and full of personality
- Each turtle and weapon feels truly distinct
- Killer value at just $25
- Voice acting and tone are pitch-perfect
What’s Frustrating
- Combat lacks punch it just doesn’t feel great.
- The story runs out of steam after a few hours.
- Bugs and broken quests can kill the momentum.
- Open-world activities get repetitive fast.
- Boss fights are inconsistent easy one minute, brutal the next.
- Not for first-time VR users.
What Other Reviewers Are Saying
Critical reception has landed somewhere in the mixed-to-positive zone and where each review lands really depends on what the reviewer cared about most:
- Road to VR called it one of the best casual VR beat-’em-ups out there.
- UploadVR said it lives up to its source material as a fun hack-and-slash adventure.
- CGMagazine felt it was under-realized, despite the obvious effort.
- COGconnected loved the co-op but called the content a little thin.
- On Steam, it sits at “Mostly Positive” with 78% of user reviews giving it a thumbs up.