All about Paramount’s new gaming division…
An interview about.... the giant’s new gaming team, a new Turtles game, their Marvel update, Avatar news, Ellison connections and more
Entertainment conglomerate Paramount has built up a new video game division that’s hatching plans for games tied to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Avatar the Last Airbender and more.
Paramount’s first big announcement from the group is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin, a third-person action-adventure developed by renowned action game studio PlatinumGames, revealed on Friday afternoon in Los Angeles during the Summer Game Fest kick-off show.
(If that news triggers any deja vu, hang on, I’ll get to that.)
The Paramount Games Group group is the result of the 2025 merger between Skydance Media and Paramount which has to, among other things, a game division that will be responsible for future Star Trek projects while also developing a Star Wars game.
Shawn Kittelsen, the Paramount Games Group’s head of creative and production, explained the overall endeavor to me, before I peppered him with questions about various projects and series.
“Paramount games now is a business unit,” Kittelsen said. “We are a content pillar alongside film and TV. We’ve been a priority for the company since the merger,”
The group began coalescing last summer.
Internally, the Paramount gaming team consists of two former internal Skydance Studios, one responsible for VR hit The Walking Dead Saints & Sinners and the other making the upcoming Marvel 1943. Those have been combined with game licensing efforts tied to Paramount’s big franchises, as well as a new publishing team.
Paramount Games Group’s big franchise priorities will involve titles tied to what Kittelsen called their “big four”: TMNT, Spongebob Squarepants, Star Trek and Avatar the Last Airbender.
They also have access to Mission Impossible, Top Gun, South Park, Yellowstone, Survivor Scream, Dora the Explorer, Paw Patrol, all potentially source material for future games.
“You take this list that you have of all the great IP, and you kind of rank them by, all right, what’s gonna make the easiest transitions to games?” Kittelsen said. “What’s got the most fan appetite for games? Which platforms is that audience using? Like, I don’t think that a triple A Survivor. Game necessarily is what that audience is looking for, right? So we need to find out where we can meet that audience in games.”
(I floated that Paramount could make a CSI game in the vein of Case of the Golden Idol. Kittelsen laughed.)
Wary of attempts by other companies in recent years to start up a bunch of expensive new game projects at new game studios all at once, Paramount will be more conservative and isn’t immediately planning to build a bunch more studios, Kittelsen said.
“If you look at the landscape of the industry, the worst possible strategy we could have would be to be just voraciously acquisitive and get too deep into a portfolio of games that we’re not prepared to support, and teams that we are not prepared to manage.”
The Paramount Game Group is not overtly tied to any plans or intentions that Paramount’s leaders have for WB Games, the sizable game division that is set to join the conglomerate, should Paramount’s bid to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery passes regulatory hurdles.
WB Games includes Lego-centric gaming studio TT Games, Hogwarts Legacy studio Avalanche, Batman game-makers Rocksteady, and Mortal Kombat team Neatherrealm.
“I can’t say anything about that, only insofar as there’s nothing to really say because we’re just focused on Paramount now, that’s enough to manage,” Kittelsen said. “And the merger and any pending transaction is still a ways off from closing.”
Paramount is run by David Ellison, whose sister, Megan Ellison, runs Annapurna, which has a game label of its own (they recently published Mixtape, are helping fund Control Resonant and will publish Silent Hill Townfall and the upcoming dinosaur survival game The Lost Wild).
There’s a family relationship there but no business one across the groups, Kittelsen said.
“We’re all about blockbusters and trying to reach the biggest possible audience,” Kittlesen said. “And so we’re sort of the mainstream counterpart to I think Annapurna’s funkier, more offbeat styling.”
Lots of project updates
TMNT: The Last Ronin, as noted above, will be developed by Platinum, a studio with a great pedigree in action games (Bayonetta, Nier Automata, Ninja Gaiden 4) though with some considerable staff turnover of late. Overseeing this one, Kittelsen said, is former Tekken producer Yohei Shimbori who will be joined by Platinum veterans. Last Ronin was originally a comic book mini-series about a lone surviving Ninja Turtle on a revenge quest.
This is a different project than the TMNT: The Last Ronin game revealed in 2023 with Black Forest Games and THQ Nordic. That one is defunct, Kittelsen said.
This is Platinum’s second game in the series, following 2016’s Activision-published Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan. That game “did not get the kind of support that I think that the Turtles deserve or that Platinum deserves,” Kittelsen said. “So this was also a chance to do justice by Platinum’s TMNT fans and say, ‘Hey, let’s see what they can really do when we get some of the resources.”
Kittelsen on Platinum’s pitch for the game: “On the face of it, the pairing of Platinum and The Last Ronin made a lot of sense just from a genre fit standpoint. But when we had the first conversation, the first pitch, it was about so much more than what I expected. I expected [them] to go deep into the action and the quality of combat dynamics. And instead we spent a lot more time talking about themes and character and the growth of the turtles and how we all were raised with this much simpler version of the Ninja Turtles in our mind… and now we live in a more complicated time, and we can’t have all the nice things we have when we were kids. There’s a twist on it, but we still want to build a better world for the next generation.”
As for gameplay, per Kittelsen: “You’re a tank of a Ninja Turtle in this game. So it’s gonna play differently than Ninja Gaiden or Bayonetta might.”
Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game: This externally developed upcoming 2D fighting game has been generating strong buzz at pre-release showings. Previously a licensed game, it’ll now be properly published by Paramount and will be the first game to come out under the Paramount Games Group label.
Previously announced Avatar The Last Airbender role-playing game: An Avatar RPG, announced in 2024 as coming from Paramount and Saber Interactive is no more. “That particular project wasn’t in production when we started this new division,” Kittelsen told me. “The Airbender franchise is a high priority for us, so given the right team and opportunity, we would love to bring Aang’s world to life in a AAA game.”
Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra: This World War II adventure featuring Captain America and Black Panther is from the Skydance team overseen by former Uncharted creative director Amy Hennig. Last November, Skydance said the game would not be released in early 2026, as previously planned. The Marvel game does not have a new release date yet. It “needs more time to cook,” Kittelsen said. “So that’s why it’s all hands dedicated to that right now and making sure that that first game comes out as good as it can.”
Untitled Star Wars Game: In 2022, Skydance announced that Hennig’s team would also develop a Star Wars game, a return to a franchise she’d previously been working on at EA. “The Star Wars game is one that we’ll have to talk about after 1943, because one at a time is enough,” Kittelsen said.
Unannounced game from former Skydance VR team: The team behind the VR games The Walking Dead Saints & Sinners and The Behemoth is making a non-VR game for PC and consoles, Kittelsen said.
Note: I’ll have more from my chat with Kittelsen and Paramount’s plans in an upcoming edition of Game File.
Item 2: In brief…(Summer Games Fest edition)
👀 Sega’s Stranger Than Heaven game that spans 50 years of Japanese history (1915-1965) will feature celebrity cameos from Snoop Dogg and… Tupac Shakur (with the cooperation of his estate).
I asked Sega how Tupac’s voice will be handled. They pointed me to the game’s latest press release, which states: “RGG Studio is treating this integration with the utmost respect for his legacy, crafting every aspect in the close collaboration and without the use of AI, including his character design based on archival footage and photographs.”
🎮 1666 Amsterdam, a project long incubated by lead Assassin’s Creed creator Patrice Desilets, not only is coming to early access this year, but has a PC prologue available now.
💥 Mafia: The Old County is getting an expansion on August 14.
⚔️ The MMO Guild Wars 3 was announced for PC and PS5, releasing 2027.
😮 Capcom’s next remake, Resident Evil: Veronica, is slated for 2027.
☁️ Final Fantasy VII: Revelation, the final part of Square Enix’s remake trilogy, will be released in Spring 2027.
☔️ ShiftUp, maker of 2024 hit Stellar Blade, revealed Stellar Blade: Blood Rain, no release date.
🤖 The next game from Gen Design, the studio led by Fumito Ueda (The Last Guardian, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus) is called gen Atlas.
Item 3: The week ahead
Saturday, June 6
Events: A day of showcases, all linked here: Southeast Asian Games Showcase (11am ET), Wholesome Direct (noon ET), Story Rich Showcase (1pm), Green Games Showcase (2pm ET), Pride Parade (3pm), Frosty Games Fest (6pm)
Events: Plus: IGN Live all day and the Future Games Showcase (noon)
Sunday, June 7
Events: Xbox Showcase and Gears E-Day Direct (1pm) ET, PC Gaming Show (3pm ET)
Thursday, June 11
Game release: Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions early access)