Batman: Arkham Shadow hands-on: A fantastic Batman LARP without open-world fluff

Batman: Arkham Shadow has you step into the shoes of an imperfect, angry Bruce Wayne. You can perform the same beat-em-up combos and hunt foes in Predator mode like you do in Arkham Asylum, but you're liable to make mistakes from a first-person perspective. It almost makes this Batman: VR LARP feel more authentic, that you're not the same confident, unwavering hero.

Before the Arkham Shadow Gamescom reveal , I was lucky enough to attend a private Batman: Arkham Shadow hands-on with developer Camouflaj's Game Director Ryan Payton and Design Director Ryan Darcey, where I played the first hour+ of the game.

Arkham Shadow may not be the first "AAA" Quest 3 game — that might apply to Assassin's Creed Nexus or Asgard's Wrath 2 — but it was immediately clear how Camouflaj took the time to translate the series' flatscreen roots into VR and made it feel like a natural progression of the series. This is no throwaway VR spinoff.

In other words, true Arkham fans are going to have to decide whether it's worth spending $500 on a Quest 3 to avoid some painful FOMO, because I can tell from the first hour that Arkham Shadow nailed the series formula and ambiance. I'll be shocked if it doesn't end up being the best Quest game of 2024 for a lot of people.

Donning Batman's cowl

My Batman: Arkham Shadow demo skipped the opening cinematics and placed me in the sewers, hunting down rumors of the mysterious Rat King. I went through several rounds of combat against foes, one Predator session, and a lot of in-game tutorials showing how to traverse the world.

Actions that only require a thoughtless button press in Asylum are more deliberate in VR, like holding the controllers up and out to glide off ledges or grabbing your Batarang off your chest before aiming and throwing. It slows the gameplay down, and no doubt I look very un-Batmanlike in real life, but it feels very immersive.

Long-time Arkham fans will appreciate the combat: You sneak or charge into a group of foes and then build up your XP multiplier by successfully timing hits and using a variety of gadgets without getting struck. When you reach a foe, fist or arrow icons will indicate where or in which direction you must hit, or else the attack fails. And instead of button combos for finishers, you grab foes with both hands and slam them down.

XP unlocks new gadgets and types of attacks. I got a brief glimpse of a disorganized ability web once I leveled up, and the Camouflaj team suggested they're working on making it a bit easier to use in the final version. In theory, though, there are dozens of unlockable abilities you'll attain across dozens of campaign hours.

Payton told us in a previous Arkham Shadow interview that VR rhythm games like Beat Saber and Superhot inspired their combat, and that came across in the demo. At first, I failed several attacks because I punched with the Touch controllers too quickly or inaccurately. If you strike strongly, Camouflaj rewards you with more points and a colorful flash.

You must watch out for warning indicators when a blind-spot attack is coming and dodge or strike to the side since you no longer have a bird's-eye view of the arena.

By the end of the demo, I was successfully finishing battles with no damage and decent combos by prioritizing staying mobile. I asked the Camouflaj team how they would keep the combat fresh, and they hinted that we'd see a similar enemy progression as in the other Arkham games. Most likely, we'll see armed or larger foes that you can't punch out so easily.

I will say that a couple of movement and combat tutorials confused me, and the Camouflaj team had to explain to me what I was doing wrong because the game didn't make it clear. They said they're hoping to make the in-game tutorials a bit more obvious by the final launch.

Then, of course, you have the Predator sections, where foes have machine guns, and you must stealthily take them out one by one to win. The demo taught me how to dip off of gargoyles, slide down to grab foes, choke them out, and hang them in the air. You can also glide down to strike foes directly, but this usually tips off nearby enemies and gets you shot.

It's a bit tricky hunting foes in first-person mode and open space, with only a 100º stretch of the world visible at any point; it leaves you feeling more vulnerable. Out of an abundance of caution, I didn't try hiding under grates for a takedown, and I didn't have access yet to certain gadgets like explosive gel that would add more variety.

Batman's stealth sections felt somewhat plain compared to other first-person stealth games like Dishonored or Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice , where you have magical abilities and camouflage to spice things up. That's why I'm hoping Camouflaj will add Predator challenge maps to the game for post-campaign replayability, as Rocksteady did for Asylum — to add a real challenge factor for long-time fans.

When I asked, the team said they've seriously considered the idea but are focusing on finishing the campaign first. My sense is that the decision will depend on how successful the game is with Quest users.

A closed-world Gotham

From what I've seen, Batman: Arkham Shadow has plenty of traversal through the world, but not in the same open-world, free-roaming vein as Arkham City or Knight; you'll only be able to grapple to specific rooftops. It's very much on-rails and curated, which matches the more Asylum-like vibe and (probably) is more feasible for the Quest 3's mobile hardware.

That focus allowed Camouflaj to pay close attention to art direction and level design. Just in that hour, I remember seeing little glimpses of worldbuilding like the sleeping bags of Rat King followers embedded into the sewer walls or interactable items you/ Batman can pick up.

Of course, you'll also find hundreds of collectibles in Arkham Shadow, a more tangible reward for being attentive to every nook and cranny. I found a few Rat King broadcast radios and yanked them out, which felt like a more realistic thing for Batman to care about than Riddler trophies.

I asked the team whether players would have the chance to replay sections to find missed collectibles and got an immediate "No comment." Either they didn't want to say "No," or that's something they're still deciding.

Another aspect of the more on-rails Arkham Shadow experience is a slight difference in gameplay from past titles. Camouflaj says that the Arkham series is traditionally half exploration, with the other half split into cinematics, combat, Predator encounters, and boss fights. With Shadow, there's less exploration and more time spent in interactive cinematic cutscenes, as well as a greater emphasis on puzzles and investigations.

I didn't see much puzzling in the early gameplay, but it makes me optimistic, simply because the Arkham games never really had Batman live up to his "World's greatest detective" title. You turned on Detective Vision and followed a glowy line to a destination. Arkham Shadow brings back Detective Vision, but I'm hoping Batman's Rat King investigation involves more thinking on the player's part.

The game brings back Roger Craig Smith (Arkham Origins) as a younger Bruce Wayne and Tara Strong as Harleen Quinzel (not Harley Quinn, yet). Mark Rolston (Deathstroke) now voices Jim Gordon, Troy Baker (Joker) is a new character that I'm guessing is Harvey Dent and Khary Payton (Killer Croc) now stars as Ratcatcher. Not to be confused with the brand-new Rat King, Ratcatcher is a 1988 DC villain who promises to help Batman in the game trailer.

The voice-actor continuity really hammers home the Arkham series connection; it's not going to feel like some random spinoff like a lot of VR franchise tie-ins. It'll be much longer than the PSVR Batman game (which only took a couple of hours to beat) and have proper combat.

While I loved the Batman Arkham games when I was younger, I never finished Arkham Knight because the open world and side quests overwhelmed me. That holds true for a lot of games these days, where developers stretch things out to 100+ hours of the game with only a bit of core story sprinkled in with the fetch quests. And Rocksteady's live-service sequel to Arkham Knight, Kill the Justice League, didn't appeal either.

That's why Arkham Shadow has me so intrigued and ready to dive in once it launches in October. It's a story-driven experience of you (as Batman) growing into a proper superhero without a ton of fluff and padding. It's not another rehashing of the Batman/ Joker battle or other popular comic storylines. And again, the combat and predator modes were, at first glance, a blast to play.

Not every Batman fan will agree with me. Maybe you loved the old Batman games for their massive size and the chance to fight dozens of rogue's gallery boss battles. Maybe you'd rather have Mark Hamill rambling and cackling instead of a brand-new baddie. And many of you would rather be pressing buttons on a controller than actually punching foes yourself.

In my case, Batman: Arkham Shadow is the kind of focused, active experience I've been waiting for as a Batman fan.