Camouflaj, the studio behind upcoming Quest 3 exclusive Batman: Arkham Shadow, revealed that none other an Elijah Wood both voiced and did motion capture for Scarecrow, aka Dr. Jonathan Crane.
“When Camouflaj initially approached me about joining the cast for [Arkham Shadow], I was super intrigued for a few reasons,” Wood revealed in a video message during the studio’s latest Q&A. “I’m a massive Batman fan, both in films, games, [and] comics. I’ve collected the toys when I was young, and I was super intrigued at the notion that the next chapter in the Arkham would be done entirely in VR.”
Despite being near some of the most celebrated performance capture on film in The Lord of The Rings trilogy (vis-à-vis Andy Serkis), Wood reveals it gave him the first opportunity to don the suit himself:
“I’d never done performance capture before. I was super excited about that prospect and then obviously playing such an iconic character was a delicious request. So listen, I’m very excited to see all of your reactions to this game. I’m excited myself to experience and play it. But until then, just like fear, the shadow exists within us all. Be well.”
You can see some of Wood’s performance after the announcement, embedded and time-stamped below. Don’t miss out on the whole 30-minute Q&A, as it goes deep into enemies, VR-native controls, locomotion along with a big slice of newly revealed gameplay.
Notably, Batman: Arkham Shadow also features Roger Craig Smith reprising his role as Batman, and includes notable voice actors such as Khary Payton (Ratcatcher), Mark Ralston (Commissioner Gordon), Troy Baker (Harvey Dent), and Tara Strong (Harleen Quinzel).
Slated to launch on October 23rd exclusively on Quest 3 and Quest 3S, Batman: Arkham Shadow promises to bring more of the series’ “freeflow” combat alongside a host of patently batty gadgets. As a canon entry in the Arkham series timeline, set a few months after the events of Arkham Origins (2013), you’ll use your trusty detective vision to see hostile opponents through walls, lob batarangs and smoke bombs, and POW! BOFF! KAPOW! and THWACK! on everyone from petty gun-toting street thugs to the game’s main villain, Rat King.
We’re knee deep in review of what hopes to be Quest’s biggest game this year, and will leave our impressions for later, although in the meantime you can check out our hands-on with Batman: Arkham Shadow to see everything in action.
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While Batman: Arkham Shadow is Wood’s first time doing performance capture, and staring in a VR-native game, this isn’t Wood’s first experience with VR. In 2018, Ubisoft Montreal and Wood’s content studio SpectreVision released the single-player psychological thriller Transference for PSVR and PC VR headsets.
