When it comes to video games, people tend to think of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a beat ‘em up franchise, but the heroes in a half shell have appeared in many other genres as well. A few years ago, a mobile game developer called Super Evil Megacorp had the brilliant idea of making a TMNT roguelike. After first releasing it on Apple Arcade, they wisely recognized the game’s potential on other platforms. TMNT: Splintered Fate has slowly but surely come to all major platforms, finally arriving on Xbox today. Not only is Splintered Fate a fine roguelike and co-op game, but it’s also one of the best TMNT games ever made.
The game opens with an optional single-player tutorial that reveals the basic premise: the Foot Clan has access to mysterious portals, and they have kidnapped the Turtles’ master, Splinter. Throughout the game, further fully voiced cinematics will reveal further details about the Shredder and his unseen benefactor’s evil plan. Tom Waltz, a writer of the IDW Turtles comics, contributes to the writing of the cut scenes, and the voice cast is uniformly excellent (especially Roger Craig Smith as Raphael), making Splintered Fate one of the most authentic on-screen representations of the Turtles, their friends, and their enemies.
Splintered Fate is patterned after Hades, one of the best-known action roguelikes. One big difference, however, is that players can choose to play as any of the four Turtles right from the start. Casey Jones, their human friend, is also playable via DLC. Each character has tons of unique dialog that plays during fights and cinematics, so players really get to enjoy their favorite characters’ personalities. They also have different weapons that affect attack speed and range, two inspirations (perks), and their own special attack and tool, so everyone plays fairly distinctly from one another.
Combat is the main focus of the game, so it helps that Splintered Fate’s combat is fast and fluid. Standard attacks have no cooldowns and make for easy combos, but the other moves take time between uses. Special moves are powerful attacks like nunchuck whirls or Casey’s ranged slapshot, but tools can attack, buff, or debuff. Tools can also be swapped during a run, whereas special moves are permanent. Hitting foes with regular attacks will charge up the player’s special and tool. Finally, players have a dash move that charges over time. Its primary purpose is to dodge threats, but dashing becomes an important attack move when combined with the right Turtle Powers during a run.
Turtle Powers are one of the possible rewards that players can choose from upon clearing a room. They come in six elemental varieties, and each element has numerous powers to choose from. The random nature of which turtle powers, masteries, temporary boosts, health upgrades, and currencies get offered to each player is part of what makes every run unique. I favor flame dash builds, but sometimes I end up relying on a different element since that’s what gets offered to me. You also have to choose between powers and other upgrades that will make the run easier, and currencies that won’t help right away but do go towards upgrades to make future runs easier.
A run consists of four levels: the sewers, docks, city streets (or junkyard via DLC), and rooftops, each of which is made up of a randomized series of rooms filled with enemies. The bad guys come from three factions: Foot ninjas, Mousers and other robots, and Punk Frogs. Levels also have a generic mini-boss (a more powerful rat robot, or ninja), 1-2 visits to the scrap shop, and a boss encounter against canonical foes (Leatherhead, Karai, Bebop and Rocksteady, and Shredder). After defeating Shredder once, future runs will offer optional challenge portals and gauntlet boss battles that mix things up and dramatically increase the challenge. As for the shop, there, an original character called the Collector accepts scrap (currency that doesn’t carry over between runs) in exchange for health refills, upgrades, and boosts.
Between runs, players will visit the Turtles’ lair. There, they can interact with allies like April O’Neil and Metalhead, buy permanent upgrades, equip artifacts, and switch characters. Permanent upgrades cost Dreamer or Dragon coins, the two currencies that are not lost between runs. Roguelikes are the most fun when they offer plenty of permanent upgrades to buy, and Splintered Fate doesn’t disappoint. Gamers can upgrade the team’s health, attack, special and tool damage, currency gain, and so much more. Most upgrades apply to all of your characters, so you’re not discouraged from changing characters. Artifacts will also unlock as players progress through the game and complete various objectives. One artifact can be equipped at a time, and they provide various boosts and effects.
The other key difference between Splintered Fate and Hades is multiplayer. The TMNT property naturally itself to cooperative play, and the 4-player co-op doesn’t disappoint here. While there are no specific cooperative moves, co-op really feels like a hectic TMNT fight whether the team chooses to focus on the same enemies or divide and conquer. Pizza drops from Foot ninjas are first-come, first-serve in multiplayer, but everything else (scrap, coins, and pizza drops from bosses) is shared amongst the whole team. Players can’t directly revive each other, but if at least one person clears a room or boss, everyone gets revived with a small portion of life.
In fact, because online players retain their own individual progress, coins, and rewards, it’s entirely possible for strong players to carry weaker ones and help them progress through the game faster. Online play also has the advantage of players not being confined to the same screen like they are in “Couch Co-op” mode. In “Online” mode, can choose to find a public run, create a private run, or join with a run code. If no public run is found during the matchmaking process, a public run will be created. During a private run, the host can also choose to switch the run to public. The cinematics that play during an online run are determined by the host player’s progress, and only the host player can choose whether to play or skip them.
One little annoyance about online games is that players can’t change characters in the Lair (unlike in offline games), so you have to leave the game and reenter if you want to switch characters. It would also be nice to have the option to create different online game types, such as a run with all Gauntlet bosses or specific Portal challenges required. This would let players who seek those challenges match up with likeminded players and perhaps discourage beginner players from joining hard game types before they’re ready.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate doesn’t have as many unique levels as TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge, but the smart roguelike design here provides far more replayability than that lauded beat ‘em up. Some of that design draws obvious inspiration from Hades, it’s true. Still, the plentitude of playable characters and the sweet co-op (with full cross-play between all platforms!) set Splintered Fate apart. Add some incredible authenticity and stellar voice acting, and Splintered Fate truly qualifies as the finest game to ever star the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I’ve dedicated more than 30 hours to the Steam version, and I’m now happily on my way to doing it again on Xbox. Hey, Super Evil Megacorp, let’s bring on some Jennika DLC and then get cracking on a sequel!
TMNT: Splintered Fate costs $29.99 on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and Steam, and it's also available on iOS.
Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and Steam download codes were provided by the publisher for this review. We really tried the game out on everything!