Next year VR will get its first big Batman VR game, exclusively on Quest 3. We went hands-on with the game and found out what it’s like to be the brawler behind the mask.
My first impression of Batman: Arkham Shadow is that it was hard on my back.
The Arkham series is well known for its “freeflow combat,” where you’re able to freely attack in any direction at any time. You manage violence in these games like an orchestra conductor, where you’re always in control.
The first big hurdle for adapting Arkham into VR, as an exclusive for the Meta Quest 3, was how to handle freeflow combat. The developer Camouflaj’s answer was to turn the game into a boxing simulator.
I’m only about half kidding. When you enter combat in Arkham Shadow, you open by throwing a punch, which makes Batman lunge at your targeted opponent. From there, you can punish them with a flurry of lefts and rights.
If one of your opponent’s buddies goes for a sucker punch, you’re warned by a blue icon that shows up directly in your field of vision. When you swing your arm in the indicated direction, Batman instantly abandons his current target in favor of countering the incoming punch. You’re never off-guard and, just like the rest of the Arkham series, you’re always in control.
However, you’re also always shadowboxing. And I felt the results in my back muscles for the rest of the week. I might grab a couple of light wrist weights before I pick up the full version, so I can pretend to be Batman and get a work out at the same time.
I played a short demo of Arkham Shadow at Meta’s offices in Bellevue, Washington, a week in advance of the game’s first gameplay reveal.
Arkham Shadow is a canon entry in the Arkham series timeline, set a few months after the events of 2013’s Arkham Origins. At this point in the series, Batman (Roger Craig Smith) is still relatively new to fighting crime, without the network of allies, equipment, and hidden lairs that he’ll eventually develop.
As the game opens, Batman’s only ally is his butler Alfred, who serves as his mission control for an investigation that’s taken Batman into Gotham’s sewer system. The Rat King has organized dozens of Gotham’s dispossessed citizens into an anarchist movement, which has recently kidnapped several policemen.
The demo I played is primarily about rescuing those policemen, then returning to the surface, in a short sequence that also serves as Arkham Shadow’s tutorial level.
Batman’s basic equipment in Arkham Shadow includes Batarangs, which you can retrieve by grabbing them off of your chest. These automatically return to Batman’s hand once thrown and are primarily used to target distant switches or destructible objects. If you toss one at an enemy, it’s good for a short stun, which can be useful in a pinch.
Batman is also equipped with his grapple gun so you can zip to distant ledges. And there’s the “detective vision” that’s built into his mask. This is activated in Arkham Shadow by bringing your right hand to your head and pushing the trigger button on the controller. In detective vision, interactive objects in your environment are highlighted, you can see opponents’ alarm levels and equipment, and you can track electronics by their power conduits.
The detective vision also lets you see hostile opponents through walls, which gives you a necessary edge. Batman’s armor can’t handle incoming gunfire, so you’re at a distinct disadvantage whenever street punks show up with rifles.
At this point, you’re advised to use stealth, confusion, and the environment to your advantage. Batman can travel unseen through vents, land stealthy silent takedowns if he gets the drop of an enemy, or leave opponents dangling from Gotham’s trademark Gothic statuary. If you’re caught off-guard, you can hit B to drop a smoke bomb from Batman’s left gauntlet, which obscures enemies’ vision and stuns them for long enough that you can retreat to the shadows.
As Arkham Shadow plays out, you’ll gradually accumulate more gadgets and tools. The demo ends before what the studio told me was the game’s first big plot twist. Shortly after that point, players are introduced to Arkham Shadow’s hub level.
From here, you’ll be able to take on the game’s antagonists in whatever order you prefer, and will unlock more of Batman’s arsenal along the way, such as a pistol that shoots the trademark Arkham explosive gel. That in turn lets you revisit old locations in search of more bonuses and collectibles, which are hidden throughout the environment. I was able to find a couple of rat statues and propaganda radios made by the Rat King’s followers, which I got to smash against the ground or wall for achievement progress.
The game’s developer, Camouflaj, deliberately dodged the issue of what other antagonists would appear in Arkham Shadow, and are focusing for now on Batman’s fight against the Rat King. The game will also feature appearances by Ratcatcher (Khary Payton), Commissioner James Gordon (Mark Ralston), Harvey Dent (Troy Baker), and Harleen Quinzel (Tara Strong), the latter two of whom have yet to become supervillains at this point in the Arkham timeline.
You’ll also receive backup in Arkham Shadow from a pre-Batgirl Barbara Gordon, who serves as computer support for Batman. Part of the game’s plot reportedly involves Batman having to keep secrets from both Barbara and her father, neither of whom want the other to know that they’re working with Batman.
That all matches with something that’s conveyed very well by the demo: in Arkham Shadow, Gotham is just on the edge. Everything in the city, and about Batman, is about plate-spinning. Everything could fall apart at any time.
That mirrors the combat system; it’s got a certain ragged desperation to it. In the later Arkham games, you’re able to play Batman as a sort of violent chessmaster, where you dance between opponents and beat up six baddies at once. In Arkham Shadow, however, you have to deliver each individual punch and takedown yourself. Not only does that encourage you to do whatever you can to stack the deck in your favor ahead of an open confrontation (like silent takedowns or opening with a Batarang) but it really sells the illusion that you’re in a back-alley fistfight. When I got tired halfway through an encounter, and realized there were still two guys left to fight, there was a distinct moment there that I remembered I wasn’t Batman.
I’d go so far as to say that it’s a more interesting version of Batman to me than the older version from the later Arkham games on the timeline. Developer Camouflaj has taken advantage of Arkham Shadow’s status as an interquel to write Batman as experienced but still quite raw, in a city that barely makes any sense: the sewers are nicer than the city streets, the cops are more dangerous than the crooks, and the most moral person in Gotham is a 20-something vigilante.
I’m genuinely interested in seeing where the Batman superfans at Camouflaj plan to go with this. The overall atmosphere feels very different than the high-concept dystopia of, say, Arkham City. Arkham Shadow is about rolling around in the dirt.
Beyond that, Camouflaj kept much of Batman: Arkham Shadow under wraps. Most of the team was dying to talk more about it as its 75-person team has been living and breathing Batman for the last four years. If there was one impression I had as I walked away from the demo, besides the feeling in my back muscles, it was that Arkham Shadow was a labor of love.
Batman: Arkham Shadow is scheduled for release this October as an exclusive for Quest 3.