It’s understandable that many gamers are excited when they hear that a new Batman: Arkham game is in development, only to be quickly disappointed when they learn that it will be a VR game exclusive to the Meta Quest 3. I get it. VR has been a part of our lives for over a decade now, and even a fully-fledged Half-Life game hasn’t managed to excite core gamers. So what hope does Batman hold?
Ultimately, it’s up to the market to decide, but what I can say with confidence after playing the first 45 minutes of Batman: Arkham Shadow, which will be released in October from Camouflaj Studios, the company behind Iron Man VR, is that it’s a “real game.” That means it’s not a 90-minute tech demo, like Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham VR that hit PSVR1 in 2016 (though it was a lot of fun). I had a really good time, and it was pretty interesting when the demo was over.
Arkham Shadow takes place between the events of Origins and Asylum, the latter of which was the main inspiration for the Camouflaj team. This extends to the physical structure of the campaign; this is not an open-world game like City or Knight, but instead a series of larger but ultimately confined play spaces that you can move around freely. Given the technological limitations and gameplay in VR compared to a flat-screen game, this makes sense. But how does it actually play?
Well, it turns out! I’ll be honest: I was skeptical going into this demo. While I enjoyed donning the Batman mask in the aforementioned Arkham VR, there wasn’t much of a real-world game to be found there. Camouflaj promises that Arkham Shadow is the biggest and longest game they’ve ever made, and so far I’m inclined to believe that. In fact, if anything, the orientation process is a bit time-consuming. I understand that players need to be taught how to implement familiar Arkham series gameplay mechanics back into VR, but I was ready for a little more freedom in combat before Shadow was ready to unleash its might on me.
You’ve learned how to sneak up on bad guys from behind, how to throw punches, how to parry, how to perform finishing moves, how to throw a bat, how to slide from above, how to drop smoke grenades, how to grapple from ledges, how to activate detective mode, how to hang upside down, and how to hook bad guys from heights. This is basically the same stuff you do in other Arkham games, but you’ll be able to do the moves yourself, using your hands.
And you know what? It’s a lot of fun. At least, once you get the hang of all the moves and start stringing together attacks. Am I trying too hard? No, this isn’t Beat Saber. But you get to take some punches as Batman in first-person in VR and enjoy the thrill of defeating a horde of bad guys all coming at you at once. It’s cool to stick your arm out to take on a bad guy approaching from the weak side. It’s cool to wrestle from a vantage point. It’s cool to defeat the ever-loving tar from among the Gotham diggers.
But this isn’t just a VR fighting game. There are a lot of bat characters here, from Jim Gordon to Harvey Dent and more—all in service of a story centered around the Rat King, a new enemy in Gotham who wants to bring down the city’s elite. And herein lies the biggest unknown for me about Arkham Shadow so far: its story. It’s not that the story is bad, it’s just that I didn’t see any of it in the first 45 minutes of the campaign. In fact, my demo ended right when I was about to talk to Commissioner Gordon and really move the plot forward. The Camouflaj crew told me they’d skipped me beyond an introduction that would have helped set things up for me. I don’t know about you, but when I think of the Arkham games, I think of two things that are primarily responsible for making each game memorable: combat and story. Combat exists in a unique way in VR, yes, but the jury is still out on the story.
Still, I’ve played enough to call this a true Arkham game. There are plenty of collectibles scattered throughout the place to find, from Rat King transmitters that can be ripped off the wall and smashed to Rat King handcrafted statues of the Statue of Liberty, plus others that Camouflaj has yet to reveal. Unfortunately, as expected, the visuals in Meta Quest 3 are average – nowhere near as beautiful as Rocksteady’s Arkham trilogy. That’s to be expected in such low-powered tech, but it’s still a bit of a letdown. I wouldn’t say Arkham Shadow looks bad, by any means, but this isn’t the slick Gotham we’ve seen in the rest of the series.
So where do I stand after 45 minutes of Arkham Shadow? Aside from the other side of the room where I started, I mean, thanks to all the punches, turns, bends, and hidden fists? I’m pretty optimistic, honestly. I really wanted to keep playing when they removed Meta Quest from my head, as the campaign seemed to be just starting to hit its stride. Should you go out and buy Meta Quest 3 just for this game? It’s too early to make that decision, but at the very least, it has the potential to entice a lot of people.
Ryan McCaffrey is the executive editor of Previews at IGN and host of IGN’s weekly Xbox podcast, The podcast has been opened.In addition to the monthly interview program (-ish), IGN without filterHe’s a guy from northern New Jersey, so his name is “Pork Taylor,” not “Pork Roll.” Talk to him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.