Shredder’s Legacy: Introducing the Big Bad of Empire City
We’re about to tell you about our antagonist. Stop here if you like surprises – by Ace St.Germain, Creative Director
**EDITOR’S NOTE: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City releases April 30, 2026, for $24.99, with Meta Quest pre-orders available now at a 20% discount**.
In our last dev diary, we talked about Karai and the reactive narrative that ties to her (and ultimately defines the outcome of your playthrough). Our story features a power vacuum, a fractured Foot Clan, and a leader trying to decide what the organization becomes next.
But is Karai actually our big bad?
And if not …who is?
Mashima.
To complement this Dev Diary, we also sat down with comic author legend and Story Consultant to TMNT: Empire City, Tom Waltz, to discuss who really is Mashima? Give it a listen to get a broader perspective of how we developed his character for Empire City.
Wait – who??
We’ll be the first to admit that Mashima isn’t exactly a household name. In fact, even some die-hard Turtles fans reading this might be struggling to figure out just who we’re talking about. And that’s a legit shame.
Mashima first appeared in the ‘Worms of Madness’ storyline in 2004’s Tales of the TMNT comics from Mirage. He was a Foot mystic and a devout follower of Shredder.
Not a general.
Not a warlord.
A believer.
Mashima is obsessed with the idea that Shredder’s legacy isn’t over. That it can be restored, resurrected, and made even more powerful than before.
That concept – the resurrection of an ideology rather than just a person – and the character behind it, fascinate me. Across Turtles’ history, you see echoes of it: factions trying to bring Shredder back, cult-like devotion, mysticism being used as a weapon. Mashima is one of the earliest and most direct expressions of that idea, and he only got one story. I’ve always thought that was a crying shame.
So we fixed it.
”Mashima is definitely one of the more obscure characters in the TMNT universe, but I had remembered him from one of the "Tales of" stories back in the Mirage books and always loved him. So I was definitely pumped to find out I was getting the chance to draw such a fun character. Learning how important he was going to be to this story, I wanted to make sure I drew the character right. So I took the design art sent to me and tried pulling back to my childhood days of over imagination and exaggeration on how I'd want to see this cool mystic warrior, as if he were standing in front of me.
I loved the colors shown for the portal breaks and felt those would look great in and around the background while our character stood hovering in a sinister charged pose.I work in a mixture of traditional and digital so once the pose was approved, I got to work by printing out the artwork onto Bristol board and inking the art traditionally with brush and tech pens. From there, I scanned it into photoshop, cleaned up the file and digitally colored the character.
Jason FlowersArtist
After tweaking a few requests the studio had on piece, the artwork was finished and we now have the awesome Mashima drawing you see before you.
(Our thanks to lifelong Turtles fan and IDW TMNT cover artist Jason Flowers for creating this original piece of art for Empire City – which is only the second piece of art ever created depicting Mashima!)
If Karai is Order, Mashima is Chaos
When you look at the central conflict of Empire City, Karai represents a structured, balanced, strategic future for the Foot Clan. She’s trying to impose order on chaos and move the organization forward.
Mashima represents the opposite. He’s completely loyal to Shredder’s original philosophy and sees Karai’s reforms as betrayal. Where she builds consensus, he demands obedience. Where she negotiates, he escalates.
Mashima brings something else into the story that we haven’t really talked about being in Empire City before: the mystical side of the Foot. Mashima is tapping into forces that even the clan doesn’t fully control, and that creates a different kind of threat – the kind that’s about what happens when someone uses power they don’t fully understand because they believe the outcome justifies the means. That makes him the perfect ideological counterweight.
Mashima’s rise is what forces the alliance between Karai and the Turtles. It’s not something that happens out of trust or friendship, but out of necessity. If Karai loses control of the Foot Clan, Mashima takes it. If Mashima takes it, the city doesn’t survive. That’s the situation you’re stepping into as a player.
This isn’t just a villain for the Turtles to fight. It’s a power struggle inside the Foot Clan, and the Turtles can’t help but be caught in the middle.
New to You, Not the Turtles
There are no forgotten characters in the Turtles universe, just characters waiting for the right story to make their return. Mashima is one of those.
We knew picking a deep-cut character would raise some eyebrows. Shredder and Krang are the obvious choices, and they’ve been done extremely well in a lot of other projects. We wanted something that felt new. Mashima gives us that while still being rooted in Turtles’ canon. If you know the original story, you’ll recognize what he’s trying to do. If you don’t, he works as a character on his own terms: a mystic, a zealot, and a force powerful enough that both Karai and the Turtles have to take him seriously.
Sometimes the best way to make something feel fresh is to go back and revisit the ideas that were only explored once.
Let’s do it, eh?
Ace
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City will be available April 30th, 2026 for $24.99, with Meta Quest pre-orders available now at a 20% discount.
