: Shredder’s Revenge was already the best TMNT game ever made when it laun🎃ch💝ed last year, which is a high bar to clear with gems like Turtles in Time, but the recently releas﷽ed Dimension Shღellshock DLC made it even better. It expanded the bodacious roster with some highly requested fan favourites and added a new mode that somehow turns the game into a surprisingly great roguelite surꦏvival experience.
As excellent as the Dimension Shellshock DLC is, it’s fair to say that it wasn’t what many fans were expecting, especially since its identity as a survival mode wasn&🌞rsquo;t confirmed until several months after the expansion had already been revealed.
“We thought about doing more levels, but we fel🀅t that adding five or six stages would require a lot of work 🀅[and] result in a limited amount of playtime for the players,” game designer Frederic Gemus tells me. “We decided to invest these efforts instead into something that would offer an unlimited amount of replayability with a brand-new game mode, which could generate new challenges every time.”
Dimension Shellshock being a survival mode might have initially been surprising, but the DLC’s biggest shock wasꦅ its second playable character - Karai, who is usually portrayed as Shredder’s adopted daughter or granddaughter, depending on which TMNT show you’re watching. While Usagi was an obvious first choice considering how many times he appeared in the ‘80s show, Karai never actually made a proper appearance in that era outside of Tournament Fighters and seemed unlikely to make it into the game because of it.
🍨Thankfully, that wasn’t the case, as Karai’s big fan following and strong presence in the original IMDB run inspired the team to put her in the game anyway, melding her fi🔥rst few appearances with her design from the 2003 show to create a version of the character that fits in with the ‘80s Turtles.
“Usagi was the most requested charact🥃er by the fan base, but Karai also came up multiple times,” Gemus says. “When we decided to go with the inter-dimensional travel aspect of the whole DLC, it suddenly made sense to have another character from ‘outside’ the main TMNT 1987 universe, and since we love Karai, we felt like it would be the biggest surprise for the fans, especially those who grew up with the 2003 cartoon.”
Now that Karai and Usagi have joined the game as fully playable 🔯characters and Shredder, BeBop, and Rocksteady can be temporarily controlled through powerups, Shredder’s Revenge has pretty much every TMNT hero you can imagine in its roster. Even with such a stacked team, Gemus has at least one character he’d love to include if given the chance.
“I feel like answering this question might actually lead people to beliཧeve that this would be the next character we’ll announce, so I’ll go with an answer for a character that we won’t see for sure - Ray Fillet from the latest TMNT movie, Mutant Mayhem,” Gemus says. “I think that not only does their take on the character have a pretty cool look, but Post Malone’s performance was also pretty funny! I feel like he would definitely be the character with the best taunt!”
If Ray Filet isn’t enough Mutant Mayhem goodness for you, Gemus also says that he’d be more than happy to include more content from the latest TMNT movie in Shredder’s Revenge if offered, something that 🐲dedicated fans have already been trying to do with custom sprites based on the newest designs. Gemus clarifies that nothing is in the works right now, but if you’re hoping for more TMNT goodness, never say never.
Now that Shredder’s Revenge has its shell stuffed with characters, modes, and unlockables, it’s hard to imagine how it could possibly get any bigger. Nothing’s been confirmed yet, but Gemus has previouꦗs🥂ly teased with a cheeky “who knows what the future might hold?” that more expansions could happen in the future.
For now, though൲, it looks like work on Shredder’s Rev꧙enge might be complete. With the team at Tribute Games having crafted such a heartfelt love letter to one of TV’s most iconic shows, I had to ask Gemus if there was any other series that comes to mind that he and the team would love to work on if its time with TMNT is over.
“I think the other iconic cartoon series that come to mind are both X-Men and The Simpsons,” Gemus says. “They both had great arcade games back in the day, and served as inspirations for us as well, so I think having a chance to work on any of these would be an exciting exp🔥erience.”