The best Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game has a demo on Steam

Indie developer Strange Scaffold announced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown a few months ago. After playing the demo, this is worth your time.

Matt Buckley

March 4, 2025 15:21

Source: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown, Developer: Strange Scaffold

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have seen many interpretations over the years. They’ve appeared in numerous movies and TV shows, as well as a whole collection of video games. But if you didn’t know, a prolific indie game developer announced last year that they would be making a tactical Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. The demo was released on Steam as part of last week’s Next Fest, and it is ninety minutes of the best turtles video game I’ve ever played.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown is the best turtles game I’ve played

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown is an upcoming game being developed by an indie studio called Strange Scaffold. You may know them from releasing two noteworthy games last year: the fast-paced first-person shooter I Am Your Beast and the odd and creepy Clickolding. The studio is also known for its previous indie hit El Paso, Elsewhere. Strange Scaffold is not a studio that’s easy to pin down to a specific genre, or known to take plenty of time between releases. This new TMNT game was only announced in December and there’s already a playable demo on Steam.

The studio was allowed a surprising amount of creative freedom with such a big-name intellectual property. Tactical Takedown picks up much later in the turtle’s story than audiences are used to. They are growing older, and most importantly, Master Splinter, the turtle’s father figure, and Shredder, their arch-nemesis, have both died. The game introduces a new villain that begins the demo by invading the turtle’s home in the sewers. The once inseparable four brothers are not as tightly knit as they used to be. Raphael is living in an apartment with the hockey-masked vigilante Casey Jones, while Leonardo is out on his own, serving the city as a solo-vigilante.

When their home is attacked, Michelangeo has to fight his way out of the sewers on his own, unable to contact his brothers after the Foot Clan cuts off communications city-wide. But don’t worry, in this ninety-minute demo, you do get the chance to play all four turtles. Gameplay consists of turn-based tactical battles. You only have so many actions per turn, and while each enemy only moves and attacks, the number of enemies makes it easy to get overwhelmed if you’re not using your attacks efficiently. The stages constantly adapt, or “mutate,” as the battle moves through the area. Sections of the stage will fall away, taking any units still there with it. This isn’t a static battle that takes place in one location, each level takes you through a journey, with each area only lasting a few turns at most before you need to move on.

When I tried the demo, I was worried. I like the idea of tactical combat, but it’s not always something I find easy to enjoy. Sometimes it can be hard to learn, other times it can feel too slow to be exciting. But when I tried Tactical Takedown, I blazed through the ninety minutes like it was nothing, wishing for more. Combat is quick, challenging, but not overly complex. There are always at least five things you can do on one turn, jumping around the stage, knocking enemies off buildings, and more. The enemy turn is simple and quick, they all move, and attack if they’re close enough, and then it’s back to you. Each turtle feels fun to control, but different in their own way. Michelangelo can charge through a line of enemies, Raphael can jump and stun enemies around him, Donatello uses gadgets to control space, and Leonardo deals the most damage and gives himself buffs. I’m not sure if there will be a level in the full game where you can play as multiple turtles at once, but at least in the demo, you get them one at a time.

Currently, there is no release date for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown, but this demo is looking great. If the rest of the game is anywhere close to this quality, it might not be long before the full game is released. The way that Strange Scaffold has been treating this, releasing a surprise demo just months after the initial announcement, it would make sense for this game to launch earlier than you might think. I hope that’s true because I can’t wait to play more.