With the Batcave-sized caveat that we’ve yet to see gameplay, Batman Arkham Shadow – at least on paper – sounds extremely promising.
This is a new chapter in the Arkham series where you actually play as Batman, created with the clear desire to build on the foundations of Rocksteady’s iconic trilogy. It’s built with a scope reminiscent of the original – and arguably the best – Arkham Asylum. And it lets you do all the things you really want to do as the Dark Knight – dash, slide, investigate and beat the baddies to the punch.
Batman Arkham Shadow is also a VR game, of course – exclusive to Meta Quest 3 when it arrives this fall, and unlikely, it sounds, to launch elsewhere. Created by Camouflaj, the talented team behind Iron Man VR, it has been several years in the making in close collaboration with Warner Bros. Games and veterans from Rocksteady itself.
The game takes place before Arkham Asylum (albeit after Warner Bros. Montreal’s prequel, Batman Arkham Origins) – a deliberate move by Camouflaj to include a younger, less experienced Bat who could come under pressure without a set of allies.
“I was surprised by how helpless and violent Batman was in Arkham Origins, and I really liked Roger Craig Smith’s performance,” Camouflaj boss Ryan Payton told me via video call. “I thought – Batman after Origins is definitely in a very ripe state to go through some really tough times given his arrogance and lack of remorse and empathy for his opposing forces.”
Peyton himself, a veteran of 343 Industries and Konami, where he worked on the story for Halo 4 and as a producer on Metal Gear Solid 4, says he was nervous about asking Roger Craig Smith back for the role of Batman – but the actor had a quick accepted and became a “godsend” while performing and a huge fan of the Arkham series to this day.
Camouflaj has huge shoes to fill, of course, leading Rocksteady’s beloved franchise forward. But it sounds clear that the studio tried to do it in reverence of what came before. Peyton says he was a fan, too — but that still didn’t prepare him for the need to build something that would seamlessly fit in with everything that had come before.
“One of the key elements of Batman Arkham is the element of surprise, and we wanted to do something like that…”
“I didn’t appreciate the extent to which Rocksteady put such care and interconnectedness into these games, even after playing the games multiple times,” Peyton said. “Even now – I was on a flight last night playing them again on my Steam Deck. I take screenshots to send to the team to say “hey, we haven’t fully agreed on this thing”. It’s kind of a level of complexity and difficulty in creating an official new entry in the Arkham franchise, but something I love to do.”
Where there are questions about what happened, Camouflaj got behind-the-scenes details on Rocksteady’s original intent. Where there are gaps in the narrative, Camouflage is entrusted with the freedom to explore these areas narratively.
“There’s one part of the game that I don’t think we’re going to talk about – even until launch – which was [Warner Bros.] it really pushed us to do something different,” Peyton teased. “One of the key elements of Batman Arkham is the element of surprise, and we wanted to do something similar with Arkham Shadow.”
What we do know for sure is that Arkham Shadow will feature the return of several core characters from the series – including a couple we’ve never seen before. “Since we’re early in the Arkham timeline, it’s an opportunity for us to tell the origins of some iconic DC characters,” Peyton said, name-checking Harley Quinn, Scarecrow and Two-Face. Ratcatcher and Jim Gordon are also featured in the game’s cinematic trailer.
“We have the earlier versions before they became these larger-than-life characters. Players are used to seeing them fully evolved, so let’s explore what they were like before. No one in the Arkham franchise has seen what the Scarecrow looks like without a mask…”
Assisting Camouflaj’s team are several Rocksteady veterans working on the project full-time, including design director Bill Green, who worked for the Arkham founder for 11 years and was the lead developer on Batman Arkham VR. “Over the past few years, we’ve just been looking at the incredible work that Rocksteady and the team at Warner Bros. has done. Montreal,” Peyton noted.
“In the Arkham franchise, no one has seen what the Scarecrow looks like without the mask…”
Converting gameplay from the Arkham series into first-person form (and yes, you can look down and see your body as a Batsuit) doesn’t sound easy, but Peyton says Camouflage approached the project knowing it had to include “all elements that make the Arkham games great”.
“We know it’s about exploration – grappling and swiping – combat, boss fights, investigations and cinematics. Those five core elements were the ones we really had to nail down,” he said. Exactly what all of this will look like in action is something we’ll have to wait until Gamescom in August, when Arkham Shadow’s gameplay reveal will take place.
For now, Payton says Arkham Shadow will weigh in somewhere between its Iron Man VR and Rocksteady’s Arkham Asylum in terms of game length, and will be “heavily inspired by the gameplay structure of Asylum.”
“It’s open to a certain degree—it’s not open world per se—but it’s similar to Asylum’s Metroidvania-inspired structure,” Peyton concludes. “We have these large courtyard-inspired areas where players can choose where they want to go, multiple dungeons that players can return to later to search for secrets.”
As we wrap up, it’s clear that there’s still a lot to reveal about the game – but I’m looking forward to more at Gamescom in a few months and seeing if what it looks like in action lives up to its rather exciting promise.
