Arkham Shadow’ Review – Arkham Comes to VR in (almost) All the Right Ways

Batman: Arkham Shadow stays true to the collection components. However did developer Camouflaj handle to make the sport really feel actually at residence in VR? Learn our full assessment to search out out.

Batman: Arkham Shadow Particulars:

Writer: Oculus Studios
Developer: Camouflaj
Accessible On: Meta Horizon (unique to Quest 3 & Quest 3S)
Reviewed On: Quest 3
Launch Date: October twenty first, 2024
Worth: $50

Gameplay

Batman: Arkham Shadow is so much like Half-Life: Alyx. No, not within the gameplay. Or the story. Or the graphics.

It’s so much like Half-Life: Alyx in the best way that the creators managed to fully reimagine how the sport really works, with out shedding the essence of the collection.

For some context: I’m not the world’s greatest ‘Batman’ fan. I’d say I’m an informal enjoyer. I appreciated the Christopher Nolan trilogy and I loved the Arkham video games (although I’ve solely performed two of the 4 most important line titles). I’ve by no means learn any of the comics, nor do I personal a single piece of Batman-related paraphernalia.

Even so, similar to the Arkham video games I performed earlier than it, Batman: Arkham Shadow is a enjoyable sport.

And it feels like an Arkham sport. The gameplay primarily falls into the buckets of exploration, gentle puzzling, and fight, and all are executed fairly efficiently. Let’s begin with exploration and puzzling.

Though you don’t have an entire metropolis to roam like in Arkham Metropolis, the sport does a fairly good job of getting massive open and related areas that really feel convincingly massive. It’s a lot nearer to Arkham Asylum in that sense; for essentially the most half you’re roaming a ‘facility’ sized house.

Apart from simply strolling across the floor, you’ll additionally use your grapnel gun which you need to use to rapidly ascend to balconies and different excessive locations which are nice for staying out of sight. Though I’d have appreciated to see a extra immersive method to how the grapnel gun is definitely initiated, the distinctive means it pulls you thru the air feels each enjoyable and surprisingly comfy.

One other necessary traversal software is gliding along with your cape, which additionally feels enjoyable and surprisingly comfy. Because it’s initiated with an immersive gesture (grabbing your cape and pulling your arms up), it feels cool each time you do it. That is aided by the cool element of seeing the shadow of your outstretched cape forged onto the bottom beneath the place you’re flying.

As you’re shifting by way of the sport world, there’s a minimum of 5 completely different sorts of collectibles to search out, most of which unlock some bits of lore. Whereas I usually don’t care about ‘collectibles’ (or off-screen lore), I loved looking these down as a result of every was both hidden in a intelligent place that was enjoyable to search out, or locked behind slightly puzzle. Though the puzzles are gentle, they’re simply the correct quantity of bite-sized enjoyable to maintain you entertained in your technique to major aims. For the ‘100%’ individuals on the market, I feel you’ll benefit from the hunt.

A part of the puzzling can also be determining easy methods to get from A to B and a few objective-based puzzles. You’ll typically must seek for methods round obstacles, whether or not they be locked doorways or electrified flooring. Generally the answer is discovering one other path, and generally it’s determining easy methods to unblock the door in entrance of you.

There’s no main headscratchers—or extremely memorable puzzles for that matter—however the sport hits an ideal candy spot of problem the place you spend 30 seconds or much less understanding the logic after which really fixing the puzzle includes some enjoyable itself (whether or not that be throwing batarangs to hit buttons, pulling levers on the proper time, or utilizing considered one of your different devices to help the method).

Subsequent we’ve acquired fight, which performs like a beat-em-up. The sport cleverly makes use of your punches as your major technique of locomotion, turning swings into lunges that launch you towards enemies. Arkham Shadow is about as removed from a physics-driven VR melee sim.

As a substitute the sport makes vital use of instructed movement mechanics [a concept I explored in a recent episode of Inside XR Design], asking gamers to make particular assaults in particular instructions. Whereas this removes a variety of freedom, it means gamers combat like Batman, which provides to the fantasy of the sport.

It additionally results in fluid and satisfying fight that permits meta-game components to be layered on high in the best way you’d usually anticipate from a flatscreen sport. Similar to the prior Arkham video games, meaning completely different enemy sorts that have to be dealt with in several methods.

There’s the run-of-the-mill unhealthy man that simply wants a beat down, the armored dude that must be shocked along with your cape earlier than a flurry of blows, the stun-baton wielder that you have to vault off of earlier than the slam down, and the swat-shield holder that wants a mix of the 2.

The sport actually nails the essence of Arkham fight, through which gamers fluidly sort out these completely different threats, weaving numerous devices and skills into the combo to maintain enemies busy when you dish out the ache.

Fight does take some getting used to, however the sport does a superb job of introducing mechanics and new enemies on the proper tempo to provide the participant time to enhance as the sport grows more difficult. The sport achieves a satisfying arc of fight, making the participant really feel at first like a novice, however a beast of a brawler by the top.

As you play you’ll earn talent factors which you need to use to unlock abilities and upgrades. The fight talent tree has fairly a couple of new and enjoyable strikes to be unlocked, like the flexibility to make use of the grapnel hook to drag enemies towards your knuckle sandwich. Though the strikes are enjoyable, most have to be activated by not solely hitting a sure combo rely, however then urgent a button and doing an extra distinctive gesture.

It may be so much to juggle mentally within the warmth of fight, alongside the flexibility to make use of your batarang and explosive gel. I needed to seek the advice of the sport menu a number of occasions to remind myself which of those talents I had and easy methods to use them.

The sport doesn’t drive you to make use of most of those additional talents, however they’re important to each success in fight and a stable degree of fight selection. I’m positive there shall be gamers who neglect about these talents and just about simply throw fundamental punches the entire time, which would go away the fight feeling a bit one-note.

Whereas there’s loads of all-out brawls, there’s additionally enemies with weapons which is not going to hesitate to place you down when you’re noticed. For these conditions you’ll need to keep on with the shadows in what the sport calls its ‘predator’ gameplay.

Anybody who has performed the opposite Arkham video games will acknowledge this gameplay loop. You’ll use excessive vantage factors to remain within the shadows whereas surveilling the panorama beneath you along with your ‘detective mode’ imaginative and prescient which reveals enemies by way of partitions and highlights helpful environmental objects.

And this gameplay loop works simply as properly in Arkham Shadow. If you happen to soar in with no plan you’re nearly positive to take harm, if not die outright. However when you take time to evaluate the scenario and discover one of the best alternatives to take advantage of, you’ll steadily disarm the risk.

Sticking to stealth in these conditions is necessary. It wasn’t till later into the sport that I noticed I might fly down with my cape and land behind somebody whereas remaining undetected. This permits for a stealth takedown earlier than returning to the shadows. Up till that realization it felt like most of my actions would instantly alert all of the guards within the room, inflicting bullets to fly my means inside seconds.

Total, the fight in Arkham Shadow feels very cohesive, and the completely different types of ‘all-out brawl’ and ‘predator’ gameplay gel properly collectively whereas nonetheless feeling enjoyable and diverse.

The entire above is essentially to say that the builders of Arkham Shadow actually took their time to grasp what an Arkham sport is and what it’s imagined to really feel like. It’s the latter half that’s typically missed in VR. However they managed to distill the components after which efficiently reconstitute it with thoughtfully designed VR mechanics.

However hey, the gameplay managed to drag me by way of. And there’s a good little bit of it. Batman: Arkham Shadow is a uncommon VR sport with a marketing campaign that feels prefer it has meat on the bones. It took about 10.5 hours to finish the sport on medium problem. I did take my time to search out lots of the collectibles alongside the best way, however the sport says I’ve accomplished 84% of the whole lot there may be to be discovered, so I might nonetheless return for some extra if I used to be so inclined. There’s additionally a handful of ‘problem’ sequences exterior of the principle marketing campaign which provide some additional enjoyable for those who need to put their fight abilities to the check.

Immersion

Whereas Batman: Arkham Shadows’ gameplay is admittedly stable, the sport additionally has a big narrative which holds all of the items collectively. That is the one main space the place the sport isn’t significantly profitable, and sadly it reduce down the immersion for me.

It’s a disgrace as a result of clearly a variety of time went into the narrative facet of issues, with stable movement seize, above common voice appearing, spectacular world-building, and a few cleverly offered sequences that used pre-rendered immersive video playback.

The important thing narrative difficulty for me is considered one of pacing and course. The narrative is essentially offered in first-person moments with characters monologuing in your course.

The way in which the characters are written makes them really feel like caricatures, and the best way the scenes are directed makes it really feel such as you’re watching a theater play relatively than listening to an actual dialog that’s proper in entrance of you. The tempo of supply was simply so painfully gradual throughout the board that I discovered myself actually twiddling my thumbs (distracted by the spectacular procedural finger animation tech) whereas characters have been delivering their strains.

It doesn’t assist that the story covers extraordinarily acquainted floor. Like I mentioned, I’m not even a very big fan, however even I’ve most likely seen 5 completely different interpretations of ‘Bruce Wayne’s mother and father killed in a mugging exterior the theater’. A sixth model isn’t actually including something.

For what it’s price you can skip a lot of the narrative moments by holding B. However the factor is, I don’t need to skip the story. I need to know what’s happening and I need context for what’s occurring—I simply additionally need it to be partaking. I need characters to care about.

Whereas lots of the narrative moments felt like they may have been performed at twice the velocity (and nonetheless may need been too gradual), there have been a couple of that have been extra profitable. These have been nearly universally the narrative sequences that have been blended with some degree of interplay—like once you’re interrogating a foul man and punch him by way of a wall earlier than lifting him up by the collar to intimidate him.

I did admire that the sport tried to utilize asking the participant handy issues to characters (to create a sense of actual interactivity), however this was sadly undercut by each the gradual pacing of those moments and the dearth of another form of player-to-character interactivity.

With its gesture-based fight, Arkham Shadow won’t be essentially the most embodying sport [another concept I touched on in an episode of Inside XR Design], nevertheless it’s absolutely immersive. There’s sufficient to juggle mentally whereas laying the smackdown on a gaggle of assorted enemies that one can simply neglect in regards to the exterior world. I anticipate to listen to many real-life studies of bruised knuckles and damaged TVs because of this. Ensure to put on your wrist straps of us!

The sport’s visible presentation is spectacular all through. It’s clearly not fashionable AAA graphics, however the look matches the Arkham artwork fashion very properly, and the world is feels suitably detailed. There was scarcely something within the sport to overtly remind me that that is all operating on a standalone VR headset (besides, maybe, the variety of gradual opening doorways that masks a lot of the sport’s degree loading course of). It is a robust instance of what Quest 3 and 3S can do when backed with the proper expertise and funding.

Whereas the world is detailed and there are often interactive objects to play with, there’s a lot within the sport that’s fully static. The gameplay is such that you just don’t are inclined to get misplaced within the weeds with smaller interactions, nevertheless it’s all the time slightly jarring to search out one guide on a bookshelf that’s interactive proper subsequent to a row of books which are fused collectively and fully static.

Whereas the sport defaults to directing customers to make use of thumbsticks for a handful of actions (like mantling or climbing out of a grate), I appreciated that there was normally an immersive various as properly. I discovered it way more pure to achieve as much as a ledge and pull myself up relatively than maintain the stick ahead to routinely climb.

One factor that felt like a miss is that characters within the sport are 100% unaware of participant actions. You may clip your hand by way of their face whereas they’re speaking to you, or throw a bottle at their head, however they gained’t react.

Counterintuitively, when characters don’t react, it doesn’t simply make the character really feel much less plausible, it additionally makes the participant really feel much less satisfied that they really exist on the earth. This isn’t a massively necessary element nevertheless it was notable contemplating how typically you’re inside arm’s attain of the sport’s characters throughout narrative moments.

Consolation

For all of its motion, I used to be impressed with how comfy I felt whereas enjoying Batman: Arkham Shadow for classes stretching an hour or extra. I’m not stunned—contemplating the magic the studio pulled with Iron Man VR’s consolation—however I’m impressed.

There’s a variety of considerate consolation design all through. As an illustration, the sport manages to recreate the traditional Arkham ‘counter assault’ by rapidly snap-turning you into the proper course to face the off-screen enemy. And you may routinely face ahead when grapneling as much as a vantage level by holding the A button as you progress by way of the air.

There appears to be some trick to how the sport strikes the participant; a sure intentional  smoothness about it. Like the best way the grapnel gun pulls you up, or the best way you lunge at enemies, or the best way you glide by way of the air along with your cape. All of it felt extra comfy than I anticipated.

That’s to not say that everybody will have the ability to deal with the sport. There’s a variety of synthetic locomotion, and sadly no teleport choice to talk of. So when you’re somebody who can’t tolerate a lot synthetic motion, this one would possibly have to be a move.

However, as all the time, don’t neglect Meta has a good refund coverage: you possibly can personal the sport for as much as 14 days and play it for as much as two hours earlier than refunding it. So don’t be scared to provide it a attempt to discover out in regards to the consolation—you will get your a refund if it isn’t for you.

Arkham Shadow has an above common choice of consolation and accessibility choices. There’s some considerate inclusions like the flexibility to show off ‘velocity strains’ whereas sprinting, adjusting the colour of the sport’s vital fight icons, and even altering the best way the sport interprets your object-grabbing intent.