Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City is a buggy, repetitive, and incredibly barebones adventure that mostly fails to capitalize on its extremely awesome premise.

Excellent multiplayer game centered around the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IP. Weapons handled well, there's a great hideout to hang out, and the game is designed to encourage fun. Overall this is a very good game best played with a group of friends who can explore and defeat the villains together.

Is the best TMNT VR game that could realistically be made at this budget, and for the franchise’s VR debut, that’s more than good enough. The parkour traversal is excellent, the Turtle weapon differentiation is smart, the story is legitimately written, and the co-op chemistry — when it works — is exactly the kind of chaotic fun the franchise deserves. The shallow combat, sparse open world, and co-op progress bug are real limitations that keep it from being more. At $24.99 for VR owners who have friends to play with, Empire City is easy to recommend. Solo players without TMNT nostalgia may find the experience thinner. We’re looking forward to revisiting this on the Steam Frame when it arrives — a more capable headset may push the experience closer to its potential. For more VR and action game coverage, check out our full reviews section.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City delivers a fun and immersive VR adventure with fast-paced combat, solid voice acting, and strong turtle personalities. Despite repetitive side content and some minor technical issues, it stands out as a unique TMNT experience that works especially well in virtual reality.

Empire City shares the same fate that a lot of ambitious VR games do. They try to mimic the scope of big-budget AAA flat games, but cannot do so because of their much more limited budget. So the game ends up being spread thin with little depth over its six-hour game length. TMNT: Empire City VR is a fun, if thin, game. Just be aware that its chief charms come from playing with friends and moving around the city with the parkour system. If you are a Turtle fan, that may be enough for you.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City is a game of brilliant highs but also some noticeable lows – traversal is fantastic, the comic-book vibes are immaculate, and the co-op is a joy, but it is dragged down by an empty world and combat that lacks any real challenge. If you love the franchise and have a few friends to play with, you will easily look past the flaws – especially since there’s nothing game-breaking – but I can’t help but to think that a bit more attention on balancing out combat would have made Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City a very special VR experience.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City is a game where the effort is clear, yet as a whole, the game doesn't come together in a way that turtles should when fighting crime in VR.

While it has the look and aesthetic, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City lacks fun with static maps and lackluster mission/level design.