Alyx’ – We Got This Covered

Virtual reality gaming has a Half-Life: Alyx problem. When Valve dropped this incredible game in 2020 optimists assumed it’d open the floodgates for more high-quality VR adventures of its ilk. But, sadly, we’re approaching a full half-century since its release, and no other VR title has come close.

Well, until now. Batman: Arkham Shadow has the financial might of Mark Zuckerberg behind it, comes free with the company’s surprisingly affordable new Meta Quest 3S headset, and aims to deliver a full-fat Arkham experience remixed into VR.

Longtime VR enthusiasts will know that Arkham Shadows isn’t the franchise’s first foray into VR. 2016’s Batman: Arkham VR was a launch PSVR title and was more of a tech demo for what a Batman VR game could be, there was no combat, just atmospheric detective work and puzzle-solving. Well, we now have the real deal and it’s turned out better than I could have dreamed.

At first glance, the Arkham titles aren’t an obvious choice for a VR reworking. In Rocksteady’s classics, much of your time is spent in third-person combat with the camera zooming out to give you an overhead view of your opponents, allowing you to engage in crowd control as you systematically break every femur in Gotham. The stealth-focused Predator mode is a little more sedate, though zipping between high vantage points in VR has the potential to be vomit-inducing.

The easy option would have been to simply expand Arkham VR, but Iron Man VR developer Camouflaj had bigger ambitions, as everything you’d expect from the Arkham franchise is present and correct here. The trademark “freeflow” combat miraculously translates nicely into VR, with your punches propelling you through the air towards your enemies, where you attack them with a micro-QTE of various punches, holding your palm out towards oncoming enemies to counter their attacks.

Conveying how this works without experiencing it is difficult, so here’s a brief clip of me delivering bat-based fist justice on the streets of Gotham:

At this point saying the Arkham games make you “feel like Batman” is cliche, but when you’re standing in a dingy alley surrounded by the unconscious bodies of the goons you’ve pummelled, well… you do feel rather Caped Crusader-y.

That said, as my partner will attest, though you may feel like a martial arts master, the reality is you look like a complete idiot flailing around throwing punches into thin air. As you score critical hits by throwing harder punches, it’s inevitable some poor Touch Plus controllers will end up smashed against walls, would-be superheroes are going to suffer bruised knuckles, and ornaments will be inadvertently smashed. Maybe give advance notice to anyone you live with to stay out of your punch radius.

All that clobbering makes for a good workout, but Arkham Shadows smartly balances it s sweatier sections with more sedate sequences. Without getting too far into spoilers, Batman’s not Bruce Wayne’s only secret identity and there’s a surprisingly large chunk of the game spent going undercover in the criminal underworld. That’s also balanced with detective mode “puzzles,” i.e. moments where you scan the environment and Batman’s voiceover tells you what to do.

As a pack-in game with the Quest 3S this will be many people’s first full VR game and there are many accessibility options designed to reduce VR nausea. I’m lucky enough to have an iron stomach for VR but, with all aids switched off, the game doesn’t hold back in hurling you around the environment in smooth motion. I love it when VR pushes the boundaries of player comfort, but if this is your first time in the headset, I’d recommend tinkering with the options until you feel steady on your feet.

Sadly there are a few flies in the ointment, most prominently the semi-frequent crashes, whether that be tossing me into a black void that required restarting the app, suddenly kicking you back to the Meta Quest menu or, in the worst instance, trapping me in a headache-inducing kaleidoscope in which the entire world rapidly span in circles. Checkpoints are frequent enough so you won’t lose too much progress, but the process of booting up and loading the game is just long enough to infuriate.

There are also frame rate and audio stuttering overlap issues. On more than one occasion I had two Batmen simultaneously giving different voice-overs, which efficiently kills immersion. Frame-rate problems seem to trigger when moving between different environments, and while they’d be forgivable in a 2D game any dip is physically nauseating in VR. Given that this is only available on Quest 3/3S I expect optimization and stability patches soon — frankly, they can’t get here fast enough.

A bit more subjective is that, on occasion, it’s just not very fun to be Batman. In other media, it’s exciting to watch him intimidate and interrogate criminals but, in VR, holding a whimpering man off the ground and repeatedly punching him in the face to get key information while furiously screaming at him feels a bit icky. Then again, I guess I can’t complain about getting the full Batman experience.

Arkham Shadows is an impressive package that fits in perfectly with the rest of the over-arching saga. For Arkham fans without the inclination or funds to buy a $300 or $500 Facebook-branded VR headset, this success will be intensely frustrating. After all, it’s been eight long years since the last full-blooded entry in Arkham Knight and Rocksteady’s own Arkham entry, the misguided Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is one of the biggest gaming flops of 2024. Arkham Shadows being this good, but not only locked in VR but exclusive to one specific VR platform, will rub salt into the wound. If you’re an Arkham fan and a PSVR2 owner? Hoo boy, you have our sympathies…

As a long-time VR enthusiast, Arkham Shadows is the only VR game that’s come close to Half-Life: Alyx‘s quality. The medium needs games like this that fully utilize the tech or these expensive and exclusive platforms will wither on the vine. In the meantime, Meta couldn’t ask for a better advertisement for the Quest 3s. Camouflaj, I doff my cowl to you.