Celebrating ‘World Turtle Day’ With the Best Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Games

Since making their debut in comics in 1984, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have become one of the most enduring and popular multimedia properties. Across comics, television, toys, films, video games, and more, the Heroes in a Half-Shell have fully embedded themselves into pop culture in a way that only a few franchises can, and it's the Turtles' video game output that ranks as some of the best and most well-known use of the property. After all, few IPs are as perfectly suited to interactive media like video games as a team of mutated amphibians who are martial arts experts. Today happens to be "World Turtle Day", so in honor of those magnificent creatures and their most well-known fictional representation, here are the best games to feature the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

• Release Date — May 24, 2016
• Developer — Platinum Games
• Publisher — Activision
• Review Aggregate Score — 44% (Generally Unfavorable)
• Platforms — PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One

Platinum Games knows a thing or two about crafting an excellent character action game, and the prospect of the developer tackling the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was cause for plenty of hype ahead of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan's release. Unfortunately, budget constraints and a reportedly rushed development (partially due to the project sharing a development timeline with the excellent Transformers: Devastation) resulted in Mutants in Manhattan being a far cry from the usual quality of Platinum Games' output. Still, Mutants in Manhattan is a fun game that features some great combat and a steep challenge, and its poor critical reception has only resulted in the game becoming a hard-to-find cult classic.

• Release Date — April 23, 2024
• Developer — Cradle Games, Raw Thrills
• Publisher — GameMill Entertainment
• Review Aggregate Score — 53% (Mixed or Average)
• Platforms — PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

Most of the earlier games to feature the Turtles were beat 'em ups that had their origins in the arcades, which made the newer Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade cabinet a blast from the past. After a few years of being a successful coin op, Raw Thrills brought its TMNT arcade game to consoles and PC as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Mutant Mayhem, and it's a surprisingly competent port that holds its own against the older TMNT games now available on consoles and PC courtesy of the Cowabunga Collection. Plus, Mutant Mayhem is arguably one of the best games to feature the version of the Turtles from the third animated series that began back in 2012.

• Release Date — November 26, 1993
• Developer — Konami
• Publisher — Konami
• Review Aggregate Score — 74% (Mixed or Average)
• Platforms — Game Boy

Imagine my shock when, as a lifelong fan of Metroid, Castlevania, and all things Metroidvania, I learned that one of the Game Boy-exclusive TMNT games was a bona fide "Turtlevania". Yes, that's right, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue is an honest-to-goodness Metroidvania years before players would coin the term, and it's a very good one at that. You start as Michelangelo and have to acquire abilities and items to rescue each of the other three brothers, whose unique abilities open up further progression. It's a bit bare bones and simple compared to modern Metroidvania games, but for an early attempt (and for a Turtles game), it's pretty dang good.

• Release Date — December 13, 1991
• Developer — Konami
• Publisher — Konami
• Review Aggregate Score — 74% (Mixed or Average)
• Platforms — NES

The first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on NES is iconic for all the wrong reasons (including most players never making it past the anxiety-inducing Dam stage), but the second and third TMNT games on the console fared much better. The third and final entry featuring the Heroes in a Half-Shell on the NES is the excellent Manhattan Project, which mixes elements of both the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NES game and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game port that served as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II on the NES. As a result, TMNT III is faster paced, better balanced in terms of its challenge, and features some visuals that make it arguably the best-looking game to feature the Turtles on Nintendo's 8-bit console.

• Release Date — September 4, 1993
• Developer — Konami
• Publisher — Konami
• Review Aggregate Score — 92% (Universal Acclaim)
• Platforms — NES, SNES, Sega Genesis

Despite being almost perfectly suited for a one-on-one fighting game, it took years of action platformers and beat 'em ups before the Turtles finally landed in one with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters. But man, was it worth the wait. More than 30 years since its original release on both the SNES and Genesis (and a unique 8-bit version on the NES), Tournament Fighters is still the only fighting game to exclusively feature the Turtles and their rogues gallery as a playable roster, and it says a lot about the game that it was able to hold its own next to other major fighters on the SNES and Genesis like Street Fighter II Turbo and Mortal Kombat.

• Release Date — December 7, 1990
• Developer — Konami
• Publisher — Konami
• Review Aggregate Score — 79% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — NES

Konami's place as one of the best beat 'em up developers in the '90s is practically undisputed, with iconic cabinets based on The Simpsons, the X-Men, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles just some of the company's biggest hits. The TMNT beat 'em up would prove to be a massive hit thanks to the popularity of the animated series, which made it the perfect candidate to receive a port to home consoles. Despite the NES port of TMNT: The Arcade Game losing some of the visual fidelity of the coin op cabinet, it's still the same great beat 'em up through and through, and it was a major step up from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game on NES.

• Release Date — May 4, 2023
• Developer — Super Evil Megacorp
• Publisher — Super Evil Megacorp
• Review Aggregate Score — 75% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — iOS, PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

Thanks to the Turtles' continued popularity and relevance via new films like Mutant Mayhem and the successful ongoing IDW comic series, we're starting to get plenty of new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games that are dabbling in newer genres. One of the best so far is the excellent Splintered Fate, which began its life as an Apple Arcade exclusive and has been slowly but surely making its way to all other platforms. For fans of games like Hades, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate will feel right at home. And while it's great in single-player, Splintered Fate really shines in co-op with four players controlling the whole team at once.

• Release Date — May 22, 2025
• Developer — Strange Scaffold
• Publisher — Strange Scaffold
• Review Aggregate Score — 76% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — PC

The newest game to feature the Turtles is the excellent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown, which is somehow the first turn-based tactics game to feature the team across more than 30 years of video game adaptations. Critical reception to the title is strong, with most outlets noting that battles are fast and fun in a way befitting the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the only relative downsides being the game's somewhat short length. Best of all, if a turn-based tactics Ninja Turtles game sounds like something you'd like, there's a free demo to check it out.

• Release Date — June 16, 2022
• Developer — Tribute Games
• Publisher — Dotemu
• Review Aggregate Score — 85% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — Android, iOS, PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One

The triumphant return of the old-school Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles beat 'em up that is TMNT: Shredder's Revenge ranks as both one of the all-time great games in the beat 'em up genre and one of the best games to feature the Turtles. While most modern beat 'em ups favor a high skill ceiling with plenty of room for player expression and complex combos, Shredder's Revenge embraces the old-school visceral power fantasy of playing as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and is just a couple of hours of pure fun across all its different stages. Each of the turtles and their playable allies all control differently and feel great, and the game is an absolute blast in co-op.

• Release Date — August 12, 1992
• Developer — Konami
• Publisher — Konami
• Review Aggregate Score — 83% (Generally Favorable)
• Platforms — SNES

Arguably the best game to feature the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Turtles in Time is an iconic title that perfectly taps into the thrill of playing as the original cartoon versions of the team. Each of the brothers is great on their own when playing in single-player, but it's when you team up with three friends and get to take the entire team across their era-hopping adventure that Turtles in Time truly shines. The original arcade version is great, but it's the enhanced SNES port (which features additional stages) that stands as the best version of the title, even though the Genesis' Hyperstone Heist is nothing to scoff at.