TMNT: The Last Ronin – why PlatinumGames' adaptation has serious potential

TMNT: The Last Ronin has found a new home at PlatinumGames after the original project at THQ Nordic and Black Forest Games was shelved. For fans of the comic series, that's a significant upgrade in pedigree.

The Last Ronin is a 2020 comic series — the first collaboration in years between TMNT co-creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, drawing on story ideas they originally developed in the 1980s. The premise is bleak: all but one Turtle has been killed fighting the Foot Clan, and the sole survivor carries the entire TMNT arsenal — Leonardo's katanas, Raphael's sais, Donatello's bo staff, and Michelangelo's nunchucks. That setup maps naturally onto a God of War-style combat system where players swap weapons on the fly, much like Kratos switches between the Blades of Chaos and the Leviathan Axe. The franchise has already expanded well beyond the original five-issue run: The Last Ronin – The Lost Years serves as both prequel and sequel, The Last Ronin II – Re-Evolution was announced at Comic-Con 2023, and a third volume is in the works. A brief teaser trailer for the game shows candles being snuffed out against a backdrop of carnage, with a single black ninja mask left standing — suggesting the adaptation will stay close to the source material's tone.

The comic is often compared to Batman: The Dark Knight Returns — a darker, grimmer take on a beloved franchise set in a dystopian future. Unlike most TMNT games, which recycle the same Shredder-kidnaps-April formula, The Last Ronin is an emotionally driven revenge story about a lone survivor mourning his father and brothers. Crucially, it isn't just grimdark for its own sake — the Ronin's arc is ultimately about rediscovering hope, which gives the story real weight. April O'Neil and her daughter Casey Marie, a self-taught ninja, are both alive in this future timeline, and Casey could function as a secondary playable character — essentially the Atreus role from God of War.

If the game uses flashback sequences — potentially structured like Halo 3: ODST, which regularly shifted perspective to other squad members — players could briefly control each of the fallen Turtles before their deaths, introducing distinct fighting styles organically. The Lost Years material gives PlatinumGames plenty of backstory to mine beyond the original comic's climactic events. No gameplay details or release window have been announced yet, but the raw material is there for something genuinely special.