Do you miss theBatman: Arkhamseries? I sure do, andWBis hoping you do, too. In fact, the studio seems to be hoping players miss Batman: Arkham so much that they’re willing to shell out for aMeta Quest 3to play a new VR game after the series' eight-year hiatus. And what classic did we get eight years ago? AnotherVRgame. We have to go back nine years for the last truly meaty title starring the Caped Crusader, Batman: Arkham Knight.
The Dark Knight Returns?
Look, I have nothing against VR, and theCG trailerforBatman: Arkham Shadowtells us so little about the game that I can’t judge it one way or the other.Half-Life: Alyxwas as good a way to spend the earliest days of the pandemic as any, and I’ve enjoyed a decent amount of other games in the medium, likeBeat Saberand Pixel Ripped 1995. My issue isn’t that this game is VR. It’s more that WB has treated the Arkham series like an afterthought sinceArkham Knight.
And that’s when WB is thinking about it at all. Batman: Arkham VR, the most recent game in the series and the last entry developed by Rocksteady, was only two hours long and, for chronological context, came out before Trump was elected. It’s been a long time since the last entry and, fairly or unfairly, VR games don’t tend to get the resources that traditional PC and console games do. Arkham Shadow could be a big and rewarding return to the Arkham series, but the history of VR (and specifically Arkham’s history in VR) leads me to expect a short spin-off.
Bruce Wanes
It’s unfair to pin the weight of a series like Batman: Arkham to a VR game, and if the series was still receiving mainline entries, Arkham Shadow could be its own thing. But there hasn’t been anything worthwhile in this universe since Knight.Gotham KnightsandSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leagueboth had lackluster sales and were negatively received by fans and critics. The two developers who have previously made Batman: Arkham games,WB Games MontrealandRocksteady, spent the better part of the last decade getting long-tail multiplayer games off the ground, and their lack of success makes this return to Arkham sting a bit more.
Even if Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad had been great games and big hits, we still would be missing something in the mold of the previous Arkham games. You can get bits and pieces of it elsewhere, true. The Middle-Earth games picked up the combat system and transplanted it to Mordor. Insomniac’s Spider-Man games shipped it off to New York, iterating on Arkham’s kinetic action combat with more narrative overlap, since those games are also set in a superhero open world. If you were drawn to the stealth aspect of Arkham, you could play Hitman, I guess? All of these games have their merits, but none capture the grimy charm of Arkham’s Gotham.
Arkham Shadow might, which might make it worthwhile to play. But, if Arkham VR is any indication, I’m not holding my breath that it will be a mechanical successor to Rocksteady’s trilogy. Arkham VR had little in common with the gameplay of the other games, mostly asking you to move around slowly and inspect the environment for clues.
It’s true that VR is in a different place than it was in 2016. There have been big meaty games like Alyx and Asgard’s Wrath 2 that prove it can host games with serious depth. I have no reason to think Arkham: Shadow won’t be that kind of game, but I also have no reason to give WB the benefit of the doubt after two titles that prioritized monetization and long-term engagement over giving the series’ long-time fans what they want. Shadow could be great, but as a return to the series after this long time away, it feels like just that: a shadow of what the series deserves.
