As a franchise, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles make natural sense for the rougelike genre. The four different combat styles of the turtles (on top of any of the other characters in their orbit) are naturally adaptable to the genre, while also coming with enough natural style that it lends itself to artistic touches. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate highlights that underlying fact, with a compelling and flashy take on both the gameplay and the art design.
It’s been a success for Super Evil Megacorp, who developed and published the game — and continues to expand upon it with new DLC drops like Alopex. During an interview with ComicBook, TMNT: Splintered Fate’s Lead Producer Dana Peterson and Narrative Director Thomas Beekers discussed the selection process for DLC additions to the game, why the IDW comics were the perfect source material for the game, and teased future allies (and threats) for future content drops.
CB: Launching in 2023 and spreading to most modern gaming platforms, Splintered Fate has been a solid success with fans. What has that been like internally, especially given the passion this franchise is known to inspire?
Dana Peterson: One thing we always aim to do as we build content and especially make new content for TMNT is to make sure that not only are we doing justice to the brand, but that we are also serving fans. I think that comes loud and clear to players who interact with Splintered Fate: that we have a deep love of the IP and we want to make sure that it is shining in everything that we build.
CB: Given the wealth of potential directions and inspirations you could have played with, why did the team choose to adapt the recent IDW iteration of the franchise?
Dana: I think IDW being a more modern iteration was a big part of that. Even though there is a lot of excitement around older versions, especially among people our age who grew up with the cartoons back in the early ’90s, we did want to make sure that we were pushing the TMT brand forward. We wanted to be leveraging some of the newer work that was being done. We liked that it had a bit more of the darkness to it that we could expose in our gameplay.
Thomas Beekers: I grew up with the Archie comics, so there was definitely some temptation to try to sneak in some Archie inspirations through the back door. [Laughter] When you work in something like TMNT, there’s such a wealth to the franchise. We’re always taking the entirety of the history of the franchise forward with us. Every time we talk about narrative content, we dive into IDW first and foremost. What I really appreciate as a writer is that depth and breadth of characters that they have in those comics, in part because it is a slightly more serious and darker world. Although older fans will know that the first version of TMNT, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, was definitely dark. There’s a rich history of that.
CB: Each of the turtles needs to feel distinctly like themselves, while also naturally fitting into this overarching rougelike game design/broader narrative adaptation. How did the team approach that balancing act?
Dana: At our studio, we like to use a process that we call D/N/A, which is design, narrative, and art. The idea is to make sure that all of these pillars are represented at the core of all of our decision-making. From a design standpoint, it’s very clear that we need each character to feel like an individual and have a different play style from each one. Narrative comes in and really supports that. Based on this character’s personality, these are the kinds of attacks they would have. These are the kinds of behaviors that make sense.
Thomas: Honestly, we work very closely together. That starts with the original turtles, but then also with the characters we’ve been adding through DLC. We look at the character very deeply, and we go, “What is the razor?” That’s a one-sentence statement on the character that describes everything that they are. That razor becomes the north star, the guiding light, not just for the writing but also the game design. For the art, it affects how the character moves and how they express themselves. It’s a very tightly interwoven process between all these departments.
CB: You have a wide world of characters to look towards for DLC options. What are some of the things that make a character ideal as an addition to the playable roster?
Thomas: It’s always a no-holds-barred brawl between all of us to determine who [becomes the next DLC character] because we all have our favorites. In all seriousness, it’s a mix of things, right? We do have strong opinions on it internally. We do have our own favorite characters. We have characters that were set up previously in the story. We have characters that were significant in the IDW comic.
Alopex is a good example. Part of the fun with Alopex is that she hasn’t been done, at least not in this specific version, in video games. We saw a real opportunity to be there. [We were excited that ] we were going to be the first ones to really bring her to life in games. It’s also being very aware of what the fans are asking for — not just our fans, but also just the broader TMNT fanbase.
CB: Are there any specific corners of the TMNT sandbox that you’re particularly excited to explore more?
Thomas: I like to think of them more as open doors. We don’t consider Splintered Fate finished. In regard to DLC characters, without saying anything specific about what, there may be more to come. I can’t reveal anything about what may be to come. But it’s similar with story content. I’m going to try really hard not to give any spoilers, but there are corners still to explore.
Because the turtles have gone in so many angles with stories, because there are so many classic villains, we can keep going. We’ve had a good villain roster already, but there are still villains that we haven’t done. For me personally, that is one of the things I’d be most excited to tap into. Now, is that coming soon or coming later? I can’t say who might be coming. I can’t say, but that’s a space I’m definitely excited about.
CB: Given the timeline since the game launched and has expanded, what would you say surprised you about TMNT: Splintered Fate?
Dana: I think when we started building Splintered Fate, we did not have a lot of storytelling and narrative experience as a studio. But we knew it was something we needed to do justice to with the TMNT IP. I think at the start, we had no clue how deep we would go with the narrative systems that we built for TMNT and that continue to build upon it. I’d say that that has been an incredible journey, both as a game team and as a studio, in learning how to tell these stories. Working with Thomas, who has great experience as a narrative director in this particular field, has been great for all of us.
Thomas: I think that’s what I like about any gaming process. Games can really surprise you. I think a big part of what surprises you — and the fun thing — is becoming more experienced in games. I think it means getting used to these surprises and embracing them when things don’t work out the way that you envisioned at the start. That’s the best approach for any game, and this is very true for Splintered Fate. When I have a very specific idea and hand it to the artist… as long as they understand what we’re going for in emotional range and shape, they come up with something better.
It’s that cross-department work that actually makes it tick. I think our second DLC is a great example of that. The whole process with Metalhead and Metalhead’s story takes you into his sub-layer, and then into this realm of portals that you’re jumping to and through. That was a great example of something where narrative didn’t exactly know the shape of what we were doing at the start, but then the gameplay [really started to inform] what we really wanted to explore. That made us think about what would fit with it. It was just back and forth between the teams, and Splintered Fate became much stronger because of it.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate is now available for Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Windows, macOS, and iOS.
