Leatherhead, Rocksteady, and Bebop were the most heavily rumored characters for the game and actually had significant evidence supporting their inclusion: Leatherhead was read from a list of characters in a video at 1up, while Rocksteady & Bebop were included in cast lists on various gaming news sites.
This game was first announced on January 23, 2009 for a fall release date to coincide with the 25th Anniversary of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.
The game's launch trailer/TV commercial uses a cover of the song "Don't Ha Ha" by Casey Jones & The Governors - seemingly only due to the reference of one of the game's characters sharing a name with the band's frontman's stage name.
The game uses the classic TMNT logo from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) cartoon. Besides the "Red Sky" years of the original cartoon, this logo was last seen in another hit Ninja Turtles fighting game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (1993).
The character designs of the Turtles, Splinter, April O'Neil, Casey Jones, Nightwatcher, Karai, and the Foot Soldier are taken from the CGI movie TMNT (2007), although the Turtles have white eye slits behind their mask. The Shredder design and all of the voice cast are from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) animated series.