At Summer Game Fest 2026, newly established publishing label Paramount Games Studio unveiled TMNT: The Last Ronin, a project in development at PlatinumGames (NieR: Automata, Bayonetta 3, Ninja Gaiden 4). As some of you may recall, we already got such an announcement in March 2023, but back then, the project was in development at Black Forest Games (Giana Sisters, Destroy All Humans!). Its development was stopped before the merger of Skydance and Paramount, and later, it was reassigned to the Japanese studio.
The gameplay will undoubtedly be very different, but one thing seems to have stayed the same: the mature, God of War reboot-like story take. In an interview with Gamertag Radio, Shawn Kittelsen, Senior Vice President, Head of Creative & Production at Paramount Games Studio, said that Santa Monica Studio's games and also the Ghost of Tsushima/Yōtei games by Sucker Punch were big storytelling inspirations. Overall, Kittelsen reckons the final game will be something unique.
This is going to be a Platinum game, but one of the things that Platinum really wanted was to take Platinum-style gameplay and meld it with western-style action-adventure storytelling. So, I'm actually working on the story with the team. This is the first time that I’ve worked on a story for a game since Mortal Kombat 11. So, it’s been a while. I’ve been working on other things, but this was one that brought me back in, and I’m working with a lot of great people on this.
Mike Rogers is the narrative director we brought in to work on this because, when we first started the project, we had all these conversations with Yohei Shimbori (the director at Platinum working on the game). He comes from a lot of great work in fighting games. He was on Tekken 8 and the Dead or Alive series for a number of years, and Shimbori was pitching me on how they wanted to tell the story, and I started pitching some ideas back and talking about, well, if you want western storytelling, we’ll get some western talent to come in. He’s like, “Well, I was thinking you could work on the story with me.” I’m like, “Yeah, don’t tempt me with a good time. I’m in. I’m in.”
So working on it is a passion project for all of us, but I think maybe the biggest difference is you're going to see a story that... We talk a lot about games like God of War and Ghost of Tsushima and Ghost of Yōtei, and really challenging both the conventions of what a western action game looks like and what a Platinum action game looks like. I think it's going to be a very unique combination of the two.
In TMNT: The Last Ronin, there is only one turtle remaining to defend New York from the Foot clan and Shredder's grandson Oroku Hiroto, who are determined to rule the entire city through fear and oppression.
There's no release window yet. The game will be launched on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S and X.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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