Happy Wednesday! We’ve put together a mini-series of dev posts to help you get started in Empire City and to answer some commonly asked questions. We're so happy to hear that people are having fun in the game, and we appreciate all of your questions and feedback.

We have deployed patch 1.0.3 today and will continue to monitor discussions to inform our next update. As a sneak preview: yes, we've heard you, and we're investigating updates to our matchmaking system to make it more robust! Bear with us as we work on it and keep the feedback coming.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City is a first-person action adventure that sees you embody your favorite Ninja Turtle. The core gameplay sees you traverse the city with fluid parkour and take on The Foot in combat that requires well-timed blocks, evades, and counterattacks to survive. Explore the open world and sewer systems beneath, inspired by iconic New York locations, and uncover an original story in which you determine the fate of.

To get around NYC and successfully counter the threat of The Foot, you need to master the basic movements. In the introductory sequence, you will be taken through all of the basic concepts of the game and introduced to the specifics of each brother before getting to freely switch between them for the rest of the game from the Lair’s arcade cabinet. To give you the best chance of saving the city, we also recommend experimenting with the gameplay and accessibility settings to find the perfect fit for you.

You can play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City cooperative with up to four players. Crossplay is also supported. To start a cooperative play session, head to the Turtle’s Lair and approach the grey multiplayer machine near the main area entrance, next to the yellow arcade cabinet. You can either host a game or join an active session. Multiplayer is handled by room code, which is provided to the host of the game and is viewable at all times via the Turtle watch of those in the active session. Note that you need to have completed the last step in the crafting tutorial to unlock the ability to host! Once a session is active, to join, simply head to the same cabinet and enter the session's room code. If the host is in the Lair you will join them in their instance. If they’re out in the world, you’ll load in nearby with a UI marker pointing the way to your teammates.

In terms of campaign progression, only the host will progress their save, it is not shared between players. You will join the host in the part of the story they are at (so be wary of spoilers).

If you are ever disconnected from the session, as long as you’re not the host, you’ll only need to load the game back up and enter the same room code to re-join your friends.

There’s much more to do in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City than just the narrative campaign. Throughout your time with the game, you’ll be able to take part in emergent crimes and side quests that you’ll be able to tackle solo or with up to four friends. There’s also ninja challenges, like point-to-point races, basketball, and shuriken darts.

In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City, you are free to select which of the brothers you would like to embody, and all four of them have the skills needed to take you safely through the game with harness upgrades. We purposefully wanted each player to be free to select their favorite without requiring a strict role selection. There are, however, some differences; weapon type and range are the most self-explanatory, but there are also perks and considerations for each that fit their personality and compensate for some of the weapon's considerations.

The leader of the group. Leo is a traditional fighter who strives to be the best. Designed to take your time during Focus Mode.

• Weapons: Katanas

• Gameplay: Beginner/Standard Play

• Range: Close to Medium

• Base Traits: Moderate Attack Damage and Moderate Health

• Focus Trait: Flow & Discipline

  • Slower Focus decay

  • Re-Enable Focus Mode when defeating enemies while Focused

  • Moderate increased damage

• Upgrades: When upgrading the harness, gains a modest amount of tech slots, item slots, and health

Mikey is the joker of the group. Ready with a one-liner, he’s easily the most unpredictable! Designed for poke and play.

• Weapons: Nunchucks

• Gameplay: Advanced Play

• Range: Close

• Base Traits: Moderate Attack Damage and Moderate Health

• Focus Trait: Free Spirit & Punchline

  • Can gain Focus by spinning the nunchucks

  • Focus Mode Nunchucks cause stun

  • Low increase to damage

• Upgrades: When upgrading, gains a modest amount of health and tech slots, and high amount of item slots

Donnie is the brains of the group with smarts in combat and a fondness for tech. Designed for defensive play and crowd control

• Weapons: Bo (Staff)

• Gameplay: Advanced Play

• Range: Medium to Far

• Base Traits: Moderate Attack Damage and Low Health

• Focus Trait: Supercharge & Extra Prep

  • Gains a lot of focus from blocks and parries

  • Focus Mode Bo causes electricity (stun)

  • Moderate increase to damage

• Upgrades: When upgrading, gains a low amount of health, a modest amount of item slots, and a large amount of tech slots

The hot-head of the group. There’s nothing Raph loves more than being in the thick of it. Designed for aggression.

• Weapons: Sai

• Gameplay: Aggressive Play

• Range: Close

• Base Traits: High Health and High Attack Damage

• Focus Trait: Fury & Payback

  • Gains Focus when taking damage

  • Focus decays quickly

  • High increase in damage

• Upgrades: When upgrading, gains a low amount of item and tech slots, and a large amount of health slots

What else would you like to hear more about for the game? Let us know!

Patch 1.0.3 is now deployed on Meta Quest and Steam and is pending on Pico. We’re so grateful for everyone’s support and patience, and your continued feedback will inform the next patch. 

**Note:** 🐢 indicates changes led by community feedback!

• 🐢 Fixed several cases where players could become stuck or unable to progress during missions.

• 🐢 Bebop will no longer become invincible or stop progressing in multiplayer sessions.

• 🐢 Keycards now correctly spawn in affected warehouse areas.

• Fixed an issue where dead players could still revive teammates.

• Added clearer markers and guidance for spare parts during the Port mission.

• Players can no longer dash while being knocked back by enemies.

• Fixed a crash caused by trying to eat non-edible items.

• Reduced an unnecessarily long dialogue exit delay in one mission sequence.

• Improved object ownership handling for smoother multiplayer interactions.

• Added safeguards against ownership race conditions that could cause desync issues.

• Fixed a host rejoin issue affecting multiplayer sessions.

• Improved recovery systems in the event of network connection failures.

• Late-joining players should now spawn correctly instead of sometimes appearing far away from team mates.

• Fixed an issue where remote-grabbed items could disappear if the grab was canceled.

• 🐢 Fixed a katana audio glitch related to spinning.

• 🐢 Improved door collision behavior using the player body more accurately.

• Fixed issues related to enemy targeting and animation behavior.

• Increased the grip threshold for bo staffs to reduce accidental flipping.

• 🐢 Added an additional save slot for a total of four.

• 🐢 Fixed loadout updates not properly saving in some situations.

• Fixed localization/font issues in Machima Lab.

• Corrected certain visual effects that were using incorrect interaction layers.

• Multiple backend fixes and optimizations to improve overall stability and reduce crashes.

• Improved character spawning reliability.

• Fixed memory leaks and several non-player-facing system issues.

• Added improved release diagnostics to help track future issues more effectively.

• 🐢 Improved Valve Index grip sensitivity for more reliable interactions.

• Added a Windows system game icon for the standalone Steam executable.