The Arkham series has earned the prestige of being a fantastic and consistent video game franchise without any licensed game asterisks. Nearly all the Arkham games are great in different ways and perhaps the most surprising compliment to pay Arkham Shadow is that it stands up in that lineage, despite being made by a different developer for a difficult platform. I’ve missed the Arkham games and was overjoyed to discover that developer Camouflaj figured out how to successfully translate Arkham’s best mechanics into virtual reality, and place it alongside a surprising and enjoyable narrative.
I don’t like swinging punches or swords in VR anymore. It can be done well, but the lack of feedback forever makes it feel like I am arbitrarily swinging my arms around. The act is exhausting and I never feel like I am accomplishing anything. My greatest, Scarecrow-induced fear heading into Arkham Shadow is I would swing wildly at Batman’s foes and feel like an idiot. I certainly felt like an idiot at times (an inevitable byproduct of any VR game), but the combat is calculated, specific, and fully satisfying. Just like the combat of previous Arkham games, you can succeed by throwing punches wildly, but being careful and precise with your swings leads to success and excitement for the next clash. Countering enemies and moving around the battlefield feels great and often like a rhythm game. I never tired literally or emotionally of taking on a group of bad guys. It is the element I suspect was the most difficult to translate into VR and Camouflaj pulled it off.
The other tenets of the Arkham games – exploring, light puzzle solving, and stealth – feel similarly well-translated. Bouncing between ceiling gargoyles from Batman’s perspective to sneak up on bad guys feels great and digging into the nooks and crannies of Blackgate Prison, where the majority of the game takes place, is consistently rewarding.
The story also snuck up on me and delivered much more impressive performances and twists than I expected. Arkham Shadow primarily explores the relationship between a pre-Two Face Harvey Dent and Bruce Wayne in an exciting way for those who have played previous Arkham games. The appearances of characters like doctors Jonathan Crane (not yet Scarecrow) and Harleen Quinzel (not yet Harley Quinn) are also relevant, worthwhile, and are far more than cameos.
The story also lends itself to the structure of VR and breaks into chapters well, which is good for shorter VR gameplay sessions. Unsurprisingly, you spend the majority of the approximately 10-hour adventure as Batman sneaking around the game’s namesake, but you also spend time as Batman’s criminal alter ego, Matches Malone. During those sequences, you mostly walk around the prison and talk to inmates who don’t know your true identity. These moments are a welcome respite to the action and help to avoid the nauseating problem I often experience when focused in VR for too long.
Batman: Arkham Shadow is a great Batman: Arkham game without any qualifiers needed for its virtual reality platform. Narratively it fits in well with the rest of the series, and mechanically Camouflaj somehow simply figured it out. “Arkham in VR” is a pitch that feels impossible or at least too difficult to be true, but that’s exactly what Arkham Shadow is. It may not be the revolutionary VR title that unequivocally makes the platform become widely adopted, but I would absolutely count it among my favorite VR experiences alongside games like Beat Saber and Half-Life: Alyx.
This 2025 review reflects our thoughts on the game’s current state at publishing. As such, post-launch updates were factored into the final score.
