It’s important not to judge Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown too quickly. As much as I would like to see the turtles in another beat-’em-up like Shredder’s Revenge or an open-world game in the style of the Batman: Arkham series, there’s no hard and fast rule that a TMNT game needs to be action-based. Some fans might remember the 1985 TMNT & Other Strangeness tabletop RPG, which is going to be reprinted in 2025 after a successful Kickstarter, and I would put Tactical Takedown by developer Strange Scaffold in a similar turn-based RPG box. I tried a demo for this grid-based TRPG at the Day of the Devs event during GDC 2025, and I found it surprisingly fast-paced and thoroughly challenging.
I’m just the party dude, man
SOURCE: Strange Scaffold
Much has already happened to the four turtle brothers at the start of Tactical Takedown. Splinter and Shredder have passed away, and while Mikey, Leo, Donny, and Raph are still together, they are growing apart in the absence of their sensei. That’s why we find Mikey alone in the Turtle Lair during the tutorial when it is breached by the Foot Clan, which is now under the leadership of ninja master Karai and technology advisor Baxter Stockman, two villains that TMNT fans will recognize. Isolated and surprised that the Foot soldiers were able to breach Donny’s defenses, Mikey has to fight off dozens of invaders and race through New York City to find the rest of the team.
Even in the tutorial, the grid-based combat system requires careful planning. Mikey only has six health points and three lives, so it’s important to use his six action points per turn as wisely as possible. Roughly a half-dozen enemies tend to jump into the fray every round, so paying attention to the power and range of Mikey’s attacks is important in thinning the herd. Moreover, new tiles highlighted in green are frequently added to the playing field while existing tiles marked in red are removed, meaning that our heroes can’t, well, turtle in a corner for long.
Lean, green, and mean
After playing a few minutes, I found that the best plan was to have Mikey swipe his nunchucks at as many foes as possible before jumping away to a square that’s hopefully out of the reach of the mob. In particular, Mikey has a long-range strike called Gangway that costs two action points but regains an action point for every enemy that gets knocked out, making it one of the most efficient abilities given the right situation.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire, Mikey makes it to the city streets only for him to be inundated by waves of Foot soldiers and robots. Meanwhile, New York City drivers apparently don’t care about hitting pedestrians and will flatten anyone on a square highlighted by red lines. Coincidentally, Mikey can use this to his advantage by deploying his special attack, which powers him up and inflicts shock to all foes one square around him. This status effect pins enemies to the spot, turning them into roadkill for the level. Using this strategy, Mikey survived long enough for Raph to arrive and bust some heads during a cutscene before the demo ended.
While I wasn’t able to try out the movesets for the other three turtles, the main campaign will feature 20 levels that are divided between the four brothers. It will also be possible for players to customize the skills for each turtle to give them the best chance to complete a level.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown will release on May 22, 2025 for PC via Steam. A demo for the game is available on Steam.
This preview is based on a demo provided by the publisher at the Day of the Devs: San Francisco Edition event during GDC 2025.
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replyNick Tan posted a new article, TMNT: Tactical Takedown is an unexpectedly challenging TRPG
