Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge DLC Trailer Adds Fan-Favorite Character
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge is getting downloadable content adding a popular new character to the game. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge -- Dimension Shellshock DLC trailer, released on Wednesday, reveals that Miyamoto Usagi, the lead character from Stan Sakai's long-running Usagi Yojimbo comic book series, will soon be a playable character in Tribute Games and Dotemu's beat'em up, inspired by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' classic arcade games of the same genre. The trailer also promises a new gameplay mode and the ability to change the colors of each character, giving them alternate looks. You can see the trailer below.
Sakai created Usagi Yojimbo in 1984, the same year Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Each creation features anthropomorphic heroes and a reverence for Japanese culture. That, and mutual admiration between the creators, led to crossovers between the two in comics. Usagi has also appeared in several of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series and their toy lines in the years since. Their latest meeting is in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Usagi Yojimbo: WhereWhen, a five-issue miniseries from Sakai that has been very good.
Interestingly, the trailer says that Dimension Shellshock will add new playable characters, plural, suggesting that Usagi is the first of several new additions to the Shredder's Revenge lineup. The game's lineup includes the four Turtles (Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo, and Raphael), their father Splinter, their friend April, and the unlockable character Casey Jones. We can only speculate about who the additional characters may be for now. Jennika, the fifth Ninja Turtle created in the IDW Publishing comic book series, would be a popular addition, as would the version of Michelangelo featured in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin universe. Alternatively, some supporting Usagi Yojimbo characters are seen the in the background of shots in the trailer. It's possible they could join in the action.
The trailer did not reveal details about the promised new game mode. A previous update to the game offered ways to customize how Arcade Mode works.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge received strong reviews upon its initial release in June 2022, including a 4.5-out-of-5 review from ComicBook.com's Marc Deschamps. He writes:
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge distills all the components that made me fall in love with Konami's games as a kid while adding just a handful of modern features and extras to make the experience feel modern. In a way, it's a lot like Sonic Mania, another lovingly crafted title created by fans of the older games. At its core, Shredder's Revenge feels incredibly similar to titles like Turtles in Time and The Hyperstone Heist. This isn't a revolutionary reimagining, but that's probably not what any TMNT fan wanted to see, myself included – it's been more than 30 years since those games released, and it was long past time to play the hits. Shredder's Revenge is over too quickly, but TMNT fans will be grinning from ear to ear right until the credits roll."
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge is available for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Details about the Dimension Shellshock DLC, including price and release date, are still forthcoming.