How TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge unites the real and fictional NYC

digitaltrends.com:

When it comes to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, there are two things that define the heroes: Pizza and New York City.

Since the franchise’s creation in 1984, NYC has been a core part of the turtles’ ethos. It’s not just an empty backdrop for superhero antics, but a city that reflects their entire being. Its streets and sewers become an urban playground for the four brothers. Like any good New Yorker, the turtles feel a deep sense of pride for their home, swearing to protect even its ugliest corners.

For Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, a new beat-’em-up game inspired by arcade classics available today, there was never any question about where it would be set. From the jump, the developers at Tribute Games wanted to make sure NYC was one of the game’s main characters, right alongside the turtles themselves.

Ahead of the game’s surprise launch, I sat down with the Tribute Games team to discuss their approach to turning NYC into a side-scrolling paradise. To really nail the setting, the team would have to separate two locations: The real-world city and the Turtles’ version of it. Those may sound similar, but there are some key differences between them.

From the jump, Tribute Games always knew New York City would be its focus. The game was conceived as a sort of “tour guide” of NYC, which you can immediately see when looking at its Manhattan-based overworld screen. While previous turtles games have taken the brothers all over the place (past and future), game designer Frederic Gemus noted that they wanted to stick to the series’ roots.

“Most of the action in the cartoons occurs in New York City at the street level, so that’s what we wanted to do from the start,” Gemus tells Digital Trends. “But we wanted