DEVELOPER: Camouflaj (Primary) with assistance from partner studios

PUBLISHER: Oculus Studios

REVIEWED ON: Meta Quest 3S purchased by the author. Batman: Arkham Shadow came as a free download with the device.

EDITOR’S NOTE: In late October, I published a piece stating I would not be reviewing Batman: Arkham Shadow close to launch. Fortunately, I was able to rehome my Meta Quest 2 and another item to help upgrade to the Meta Quest 3S.

Between LEGO, the Arkham saga kickstarted by Rocksteady Studios and Telltale Games, there once was an embarrassment of riches of quality Batman games dropping at a steady pace. Lately though the death or absence of the Dark Knight has been the catalyst to kickstart new projects like Gotham Knights in 2022 and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League earlier this year. With the sting of beloved Batman performer Kevin Conroy still being felt, it has been tough lately to envision a path forward for DC’s iconic character in the interactive space.

The studio who chose to step up to that challenge was Camouflaj, the same folks who crafted the ground breaking Marvel’s Iron Man VR that quite literally let you step into the armor of Tony Stark. Built as an exclusive for the Meta Quest 3 and 3S virtual reality devices, Camouflaj’s latest project, Batman: Arkham Shadow, does for DC’s billionaire vigilante what the studio did for Marvel’s just a few short years ago. Despite a few technical hiccups that will assuredly get ironed out as time rolls on, Batman: Arkham Shadow isn’t just a paired down entry in the now 15 year old franchise for VR. Rather, it wonderfully adapts the gameplay loop that longtime lovers of the series come to expect and manages to stands toe-to-toe as one of the best entries in the Arkham saga. If you have the means to play it, it’s not to be missed.

Batman: Arkham Shadow takes place months after the conclusion of Batman: Arkham Origins and its companion title, Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate. The entry it shares the most in common with, however, is the one that started it all: Batman: Arkham Asylum. While they do have superhero experience under their belt, Camouflaj wisely chose not to scope their first Batman outing on the size of either City or Origins. Instead Arkham Shadow is contained with one centralized location: Blackgate Penitentiary.

What struck a chord with players when experiencing Batman: Arkham Asylum for the first time in 2009 – or those who are playing it for the first time through rereleases – was not only how great of a Batman simulator it was, but it’s addictive gameplay loop. Fundamentally, Arkham Asylum has much in common with Metroid Prime in that the twisted mental health facility fleshes out the more you collect new gadgets that open up new pathways, secrets and shortcuts. The throughline though was how it juggled exploration, combat and stealth at such a rate that each sequence came at exactly the right time as to not let one overstay its welcome.

With Arkham Shadow, you can tell that Camouflaj meticulously studied those blueprints as Shadow follows many of the same beats but never to the point where it merely becomes a carbon copy. It understands what made Arkham Asylum a classic and used that template as a north star in which to build the first true Batman VR title. That is not to dismiss the work that Rocksteady put into Batman: Arkham VR mind you, but Shadow is a completely different beast entirely and it all comes down to its mechanics.

Not content with merely being a teleporting heavy investigation tale, Batman: Arkham Shadow lets you perform every memorable action from the series including freeflow fisticuffs, predator stealth segments, crawling around grates and solving puzzles that unlock collectibles. This is all done from the first-person and after some adjustment rewiring your brain from years of muscle memory on how much of these actions are performed, it simply clicks and, like Marvel’s Iron Man VR before it, you feel like Batman. With 2 hands by your side, you extend your arms upwards, watching yourself as a horned silhouette glide towards hapless, scared thugs and it’s just as chilling as it sounds.

A caveat though, and one that should perhaps be put at the start of the game, is that you might want to stretch before playing, as just like it would be if you were Batman in real life, Arkham Shadow can be a workout. Every action from throwing punches, to hurling batarangs, disarming goons and countering when an icon pops up is handled by motion controls of some sort. It eases you into combat, just like Arkham Asylum, by throwing small groups of unarmed henchmen at you. But by the end you’re juggling waves of enemies of all types from armored foes to ones with knives, firearms and stun rods. You’ll find yourself not wanting to die because your poor arms might simply not be able to keep up with how much you get into things. When you’re throwing a punch, your brain tells you to do it exactly like Batman would and your muscles respond in kind.

Blackgate will never quite be as iconic a location as Arkham Asylum, but it’s still nevertheless built as a place that’s highly enjoyable to explore. Tapping a button while you’re hand is close to your head initiates detective vision, allowing you to see secrets and places you’ll want to revisit once your arsenal grows. Combat is a thrill in Arkham Shadow, but some of its puzzles are equally engaging in their own way. Some have you deciphering clues to unlock combinations, while others have you literally climbing around like Nathan Drake in Uncharted trying to get the right angle to throw a batarang that disarms a trap. There are green, non-question mark, trophies to gather, plus recordings that provided depth to the supporting cast and echoes from the Origins saga.

For all its accolades, some of the boss battles in the Arkham series are hit or miss but Shadow doesn’t have a dud in the bunch. Each are tense encounters that test your understanding of the mechanics and add weight to the story. To discuss them, however, would be to spoil some of the best moments that Shadow has to offer.

With all that’s going on in Batman: Arkham Shadow, one might fear that it could cause an unhealthy physical reaction, but there’s plenty of adjustments that can be made in the options to make the experience as comfortable as possible. Much of these concessions are baked into the general design too. For example, when you zip from perch to perch in predator encounters, you can hold down a button to adjust your view and Batman’s vantage point is still right side when hanging down from a gargoyle. As you vault over a stun rod wielding enemy, your perspective also shifts accordingly and your field of view shrinks when you sprint. With each release, Camouflaj continue to refine what works and doesn’t with this new technology and it shows. This is true both from pure gameplay and how they use the medium to immerse the player in the stories they tell.

via Electric Playground – EPN YouTube

If Batman: Arkham Origins was the Die Hard Christmas analog, that would make Arkham Shadow, technically the third part of this subsection of the franchise, Die Hard with a Vengeance. During the heat of July, Gotham is under siege from a new threat known only as The Rat King who is threatening the city with a cleansing “Day of Wrath.” Frustrated that his tactics aren’t working, Batman makes a drastic move to enter Blackgate undercover as an inmate to live among its criminal element and stop The Rat King’s schemes from ever taking place.

In universe, Batman is known as the world’s greatest detective, and the Arkham games, and most recently Gotham Knights, have allowed you to mechanically explore that to an extent by examining crime scenes, discovering clues and following evidence trails. Where Arkham Shadow stands out over Batman: Arkham Knight and Gotham Knights is how its mystery is built. The crux of the investigation is uncovering the identity of The Rat King, and up until the final moments it could really be any number of suspects as Camouflaj really keeps you guessing throughout. This stands in contrast to the previously mentioned games where they introduce masked figures but only ever really present you with one fairly obvious answer as to who’s hiding behind them.

Like in Marvel’s Iron Man VR, you are effectively the camera during most of the cinematics where you’re largely allowed to freely move about and really zoom in on some impressively emotional character models of classic Batman characters like Harvey Dent, Dr. Harleen Quinzel and Jonathan Crane. Roger Craig Smith reprised the starring role from Batman: Arkham Origins and his work is to be commended here. This Batman is still young in his career and filled with undirected rage which Smith emotes terrifically. Not only that, he’s juggling three voices here and does so in such a way that will remind you of how Kevin Conroy did during his recordings on Batman: The Animated Series.

Tara Strong comes back as Dr. Harleen Quinzel, and her performance too is to be applauded in how subdued it is compared to what we know will eventually become of the character in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. It almost makes you desperately wish you could perhaps change her fate somehow because this Harley still has hope that her skills can be used to help criminals. Without spoiling too much, Troy Baker is on retainer here and some of his line deliveries will haunt you to your very core.

With a well crafted story, a moody location and soundtrack, not to mention incredible performances and refined mechanics, Batman: Arkham Shadow only manages to stumble in a few areas. Camouflaj is committed to this game for the long haul – as of this writing they just released a patch for Arkham Shadow – but there was still some nuances that sucked me out of the experience. Early on during a scripted event, I had to reload because I had to slide a grate open and the game would not recognize one of my hands. This wasn’t as bad, however, as later on when I lost progress by having to reload an earlier save when starting to get my second piece of equipment because an event trigger didn’t happen. I spoke to someone else who played and they informed me they experienced the same thing.

I won’t get into a full review of the Meta Quest 3S hardware, but I do find it to be a huge upgrade in terms of comfort when compared to the Quest 2. For transparency, I bought the Elite Strap as it was discounted with my purchase, and found the headset rested very comfortably. I wear glasses, and they also fit well within the visor, especially when compared to the Quest 2 that would take them with it when I removed it which was not the case here.

The way in which the controls recognize your hands is uncannily close to real life. When my thumb would drift from the face buttons to the control stick, it would detect I was no longer in a punching stance for combat. Often times during cutscenes I would fold my arms, then look down to see that Batman was doing the same with no odd clipping because they were tracked so well.

If after playing flat screen DC Comics titles lately like Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League have you longing for a new Arkham adventure, Batman: Arkham Shadow will easily fill that void. Minor bugs aside that will more than likely get fixed, Arkham Shadow takes an established blueprint on how to build a Batman game and marries it to VR in such a way that makes you feel like Batman while still managing to be authentically “Arkham”. This is not merely a “good for a VR offering” game, this is Arkham through-and-through and the lengths that Camouflaj went through in marrying story with the classic Arkham mechanics to this technology is to be lauded. If you have a Meta Quest 3 or 3S, this needs to be in your library, and if you’re on the fence about getting one, this will surely push you over into the purchasing side if you have the budget.

via Meta Quest YouTube

Batman: Arkham Shadow is available as an exclusive for the Meta Quest 3 and 3S. It’s available as a free download up to April of 2025 with your purchase of a new headset.