Provided you have (or buy) a Meta Quest 3.
My love affair with VR was much like that with my 3D TV: brief, yet intense. Using the original PlayStation VR, I got the chance to (partially) live out fantasies of being a captain in Starfleet or even become Iron Man himself. I was so into the fad that I gave huge praise to Batman Arkham VR, a title that I’d now consider a technical demo.
“Limitations… mean you’re never going to be able to use Freeflow Combat against thugs, but this is the next best thing,” I wrote at the time. Nearly ten years later, that time is finally now — and with a headset that’s free from tethers to boot!
Enter Batman Arkham Shadow, a Meta Quest 3 and Meta Quest 3S exclusive title developed by Iron Man VR dev Camoflaj. It not only offers Freeflow Combat, but feels like an Arkham game proper, filling the gap between Batman Arkham Origins (and Blackgate) and what’s still the Batman GOAT, Batman Arkham Asylum.
Following the events of Origins — and featuring Roger Craig Smith as Batman rather than the late, iconic Kevin Conroy — Shadow features a caped crusader still trying to find his way. The Dark Knight Detective is waiting to burst out, but ol’ Brucey has to get a bit of a grip on his rage and impulsiveness first. That’s a little easier said than done here, as Gotham is at its own breaking point as we enter the story, a mere week before the villainous Rat King enacts his wrath on the city and its inhabitants.
With a somewhat slow start, things pick up as Batman investigates the Rat King and decides his best course of action is to go undercover at Blackgate Penitentiary; there, you’ll then divide your time between hero and inmate, Bruce’s alter ego Matches Malone. As the latter, you’ll walk through the grounds of the prison, meeting the likes of Dr Crane, Dr Quinzel, and crime bosses like Carmine Falcone. At night, you’ll slip out of your cell and don the Batsuit, solving cases, breaking skulls, and keeping to the shadows.
While the original Batman Arkham VR was nothing but a standing around simulator, Shadow lets you engage in all the activities you’d expect from a true Arkham title, including additional Predator and Combat challenges beyond the encounters that feature as part of its story. Standing around is part of the action as well, as all this activity is broken up with large bits of exposition and excruciatingly long loading times when compared to the likes of the Xbox Series, PS5, and Switch 2.
Set loose in fully realised environments — which look more from the Xbox 360’s Arkham Asylum than the PS4’s Arkham Knight — you have full control of Batman as he walks, runs, slides, climbs ledges, removes grates to then crawl through ducts, and all the usual Arkham fare. This system works well in combat — your controller’s Grip button controls your pinky, ring, and middle fingers and lets you grab items from your utility belt, your batarang from your chest, and even certain objects in the environment.
The Trigger button controls your pointer finger — which means you can give people the wink and the gun if you really want — but is truly useful to grab your cape for stuns or to glide through the air. Finally, with those buttons depressed and your fingers on each joystick, you clench your fists and get punching. Blue, yellow, and red alerts off to the side of your vision mean — just like in Arkham games proper — mean that you’ll need to avoid a punch, stun rod, or bullet from a goon looking to end you.
It takes a couple encounters to get used to Freeflow Combat, but the entire system is designed well and really does make you feel like you’re in a battle. Playing on Normal difficulty is recommended, however; in Hard and above, you’ll need to be perfectly precise. I struggled with movement, proper counters, and just needing to land so many more punches on opponents in higher difficulties to actually enjoy the experience. This panic also meant I ended up accidentally pausing the game rather than activating special takedowns, then meaning I had to build up my combo counter before trying again.
The same is true for stealth, where I generally just resorted to ledge takedowns rather than trying to sneak up behind — or around a corner from — a bad guy. If combat’s a bit clunky, stealth is incredibly so — more often than not, you’ll find yourself outing yourself to a room of opponents rather than being a silent predator because movement isn’t as intuitive as a straight-up punch. Like in other Arkham games too, you’ll likely spend most of your time playing with Detective Vision turned on, for better or worse.
If this didn’t already feel Arkham enough for you, you’ll get to engage with all the bells and whistles, including Scarecrow’s usual hijinks and even a trip back to where Martha and Thomas met their end. You’ll also be encouraged to explore and find Riddler Trophies (this time Rat King Trophies), propaganda radios, and memory echoes. Exploration is quite fun, and I found myself simply walking around and talking to all the inmates of Blackgate when I could — they’re either kitted up in Rat King gear or waltzing around shirtless for some reason.
There’s a lot of game to be found within Shadow, and while I never felt motion sick or uneasy playing, I found I needed to keep my sessions to an hour or two at most, generally because I need to fit the Quest 3 headset so tight to my head for things to look clear and crisp that it eventually starts to hurt my face.
Shadow is decent, visually — far better than Batman Arkham VR — but framerates occasionally get very jittery and I’ve encountered numerous crashes where the Quest 3 will offer up a Manta error code and tell me it has run out of memory. The latter problems can be quite frustrating, due to aforementioned loading times; the worst instance of this, however, occurred during a crucial cutscene and I had to piece together who I was — and where I was — when first booting up and placed in Blackgate.
Issues aside, this is also a tremendous step up for Camoflaj itself, quite considerably improving upon Iron Man VR gameplay.
Batman Arkham Shadow is a proper game with VR and not simply a VR game. This is a true must-have for Batman fans — so much so that I am tempted to go drop my Arkham VR score down so, so many pegs — and even more of one if you’ve already got a Meta Quest 3S or Meta Quest 3. If you’re not in that camp, it’s that hurdle that may stop you: here in Australia, the Quest 3S is currently retailing for $419.99 AUD, while the more-powerful Meta Quest 3 will set you back $799.99 AUD.
Batman Arkham Shadow was reviewed using a promotional code on Meta Quest 3, both provided by the developer and publisher. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.
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