Batman: Arkham Shadow Review – Cowl On

As a huge Batman fan, the announcement of Batman: Arkham Shadow earlier this year came as a massive surprise. Almost a decade after the last core entry in the series (Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League not included), a return to the Batman-centric universe was certainly an appealing prospect. While I was expecting a good time with familiar themes and aesthetics, I didn’t know I was in for the best VR game I’ve ever played.

Set a short while after Batman: Arkham Origins, Shadow takes place across one week in Gotham City, but primarily Blackgate Prison. Gotham is under siege by the Rat King, an underground cult leader preparing for a ‘Day of Wrath’ to overthrow the current governing bodies and give power back to the people.

Image Source: Camouflaj

It’s a premise in keeping with the Arkham games’ hyper-linear structure, often taking place over a short period of time while simultaneously keeping the stakes high. What it does differently, though, is place almost as much emphasis on not playing as Batman as it does letting you don the cape and cowl. Fear not—there’s plenty of opportunity to grapple around rooftops, wail on bad guys, and solve mysteries in Detective Vision. Alongside that, though, Arkham Shadow breaks this up by having you play as a Blackgate inmate called Matches Malone.

While that may sound frustrating, it’s executed in such a way that the divide in playable characters feels wholly organic, opening up different facets of gameplay. Batman sections are more action-heavy, focusing on the classic rhythmic FreeFlow combat alongside Predator sections where you pick off enemies one-by-one. As Matches, you focus more on interacting with characters, sneaking around stealthily, and solving puzzles.

It’s a clever dichotomy that would feel much less engaging if it wasn’t for the exquisite implementation of VR technology. If this were a PS5 game it would feel restrictive to lose all of the gadgets and abilities you have as Batman, but on the Quest 3, it just adds a different veneer to the ways you can explore the world of Arkham Shadow.

Image Source: Camouflaj

That’s exactly why Arkham Shadow far surpassed my expectations as a licensed VR game: it’s not a console game tweaked and shoehorned to fit the format, but clearly built with reverence and love by Camouflaj with VR functionality constantly in mind. From the way Batman’s gadgets are accessible from different parts of your waist to snappy, responsive combat sequences, it all fits like a glove.

That combat is arguably the Arkham series’ defining characteristic, and it’s truly astounding how well that transfers across in Arkham Shadow. Of course, it’s slightly less bouncing and rhythmic than the third-person games, but the snap of each punch and the need to build up combos is just as important here. The game streamlines aspects such as counter-attacks and rapid-fire punches, but never to the extent that combat gets boring. In fact, I’d relish walking through a locked door, just to find myself facing upwards of ten goons all ready for a pummelling. It does take a fair bit of practice to get used to the timing of punch sequences and the management of the camera so you’re always facing an enemy head-on, but the trade-off is that you genuinely feel like Batman after clearing a room.

The stealth-heavy Predator sequences in the Arkham games always felt lesser compared to hand-to-hand combat, and that broadly remains the same in Arkham Shadow. Once again you swing from vantage points, slowly picking off armed grunts and doing your best to remain in the, ahem, shadows. It just feels less fluid here; enemy detection is either totally off or SAS-level sharp, and sequences are long enough that it can feel frustrating when you die to the final goon and have to do it all again.

Image Source: Camouflaj

Fortunately, those Predator sequences open up the chance to test out Batman’s vast gadgets. Some of them never get old, like zipping up to a vantage point using your grappling hook or gliding across gaps with the cape. Detection can sometimes be a bit off, with a few scenarios where it took me plenty of fails before the cape opened, or zipping to a climbable ledge only for it to take numerous attempts for the game to recognize I was trying to ascend it. That said, Arkham Shadow has plenty of opportunities to use Batman’s gadgets in practice, with puzzles that are head-scratching but by no means obtuse.

It’s also got a narrative that fans of the Arkhamverse will relish for fleshing out some of the lesser-explored characters. Yes, there are winks and nudges to A-lister villains here, but the story focuses more on Batman coming to terms with his morality and the way he’s perceived by the public, through the lens of supporting villains like the Ratcatcher. Harvey Dent, a future adversary of Batman’s, also gets the star treatment with a simultaneously heartbreaking and humane arc, alongside familiar faces like Jonathan Crane and Harleen Quinzell.

While not everyone has access to a Quest 3 headset, everyone needs to play Batman: Arkham Shadow – it’s that much of a must-have that it’ll be a guaranteed system seller. It admirably transposes the Arkham gameplay loop to VR in a way that harnesses the medium’s idiosyncracies while also retaining the DNA that made the previous games so special. It’s the best VR game I’ve ever laid hands on, and one of 2024’s biggest surprises.

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