I Have Complicated Thoughts About Batman: Arkham Shadow
If you don't count Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Batman: Arkham Shadow is the first Arkham game to be released in 9 years; at the very least, the first single-player Batman game to be released under the Arkham moniker since Arkham Knight in 2015
There were quite a lot of attempts at continuing the Arkham franchise - a cancelled sequel to Arkham Knight staring Damian Wayne, a cancelled Suicide Squad game by WB Montreal, and Gotham Knights takes a lot of notes from the series
But, as far as a proper continuation goes, there wasn't a whole lot to go off of. This wasn't helped by the unfortunate and tragic passing of Kevin Conroy, who voiced Batman in countless projects, namely the Animated Series, the New Batman Adventures, and Arkham Asylum, City, and Knight, leaving the future of the franchise after KTJL even more uncertain
There had been other voice actors to pick up the cowl, sure, and the Arkham series even had two prequel games where Batman was voiced by Roger Craig Smith, but continuing the series where it left off seemed less and less likely with every passing year
That is, until, Summer of 2024 - when it was announced we would be getting a brand new Arkham game. Taken on its own, that statement should inspire at least intrigue, and it did! But, the catch became clear immediately: it would be a VR exclusive. Specifically, exclusive to the Meta Quest 3:
Sigh. Deep, profound sigh. The first new Arkham game in just sigh of a decade, and it's something absolutely nobody asked for? No thanks. No thank you. I'm out, back to playing with Arkham Knight mods
To preface all this, I'm someone who absolutely adores the Arkham games. On the PC versions alone, I've put in an absolutely insane amount of time into them:
And if we're being totally, completely honest? Laying all our cards on the table? I thought Arkham Shadow was going to suck royally when it was announced as a VR exclusive
I had absolutely no hope at all for this one. So, I wrote it off, and thought absolutely nothing of it. But, eventually, the game did come out...and reception was...glowing.
I was surprised, to say the very least. Well, I was hungry for more Arkham, and I was distantly interested in VR for a while anyway, wanting to try games like Phasmophobia and Resident Evil 4 VR, so...eventually, come Christmas 2025, I would get my hands on a headset.
But, to be clear? Arkham Shadow was the reason I wanted a VR headset
Was it worth it? Is the game actually good? Well...
It's complicated. Well, yes - the game is good. It's essentially another Arkham game in first person with all the VR stuff. I had a lot of adjusting to do, I got some pretty bad motion sickness (that, thankfully, there are a lot of options to try and help mitigate that) but I overall enjoyed my time with the game a lot. ...But it wasn't without its issues
Story spoilers, ahead, be warned. Anything beyond the next photo is safe from these, however:
It's the Fourth of July, following the chaotic Christmas and New Years we saw in Arkham Origins. A new band of thugs, the Rats, has shown up in Gotham, along with their leader, the Rat King. Batman, working with Gordon and the new District Attorney, Harvey Dent, to uncover who this mysterious new figure is and stop this supposed "Day of Wrath"
With leads that only lead to dead ends, his investigation leads him into Blackgate Prison - where he dons the persona of Irvin Malone, earning the nickname of Matches. He now has to contend with the security force of TYGER, lead by Lyle Bolton, the inmates following Carmine Falcone, and the Rats
There's a sort of duality to Arkham Shadow, fittingly - you spend one half of the game as Matches, and the other, the more traditional Arkham game where you play as Batman. You'll encounter a lot of figures as both, including Dr. Jonathan Crane and Dr. Harleen Quinzel, who have very different ideas of effective therapy
One particular inmate goes missing, something that Malone ends up being on the hook for - landing him on the stand on a pre-trial hearing. Matches, suffering some injuries from some brutality, is having a competency hearing; Crane attempts to administer a sedative. Unfortunately, Harvey is standing too close as Malone knocks it away, covering half of his body in acid, severely burning him
Narrowly escaping the gas chamber for his crimes, Malone makes his way to a makeshift Batcave underneath the prison, where he follows a series of caves to old docks harboring an old World War II vessel, tracking down the Rat King, who we learn is Harvey Dent, having been slowly corrupted, his recent attack finalizing his transformation
A final confrontation on top of the GCPD leaves Harvey hospitalized, fully becoming Two-Face, but his memory of the events over the game has been slowly eroded
That's the briefest cliffnotes version. There are a lot of other things to pick up on and notice, notably, a significant cameo of one of Batman's other allies and their relationship beginning, but overall, while the story is enjoyable and it's nice to see more of the beginnings of things that would be significant later down the timeline, part of me can't help but feel like the story is a bit rushed and sloppy
The ending and the reveal of the Rat King, in particular, feels a bit haphazard. The mystery leading up to it is incredibly interesting, there's a long list of candidates it could be, but when we learn who it is, it ends up raising far more questions than answers
I say this as someone who has, full disclosure, only completed the main story and not collected all the interview tapes or finished the side missions. But I still felt that, while the story was satisfying, I wish there was a bit more leading up to it
The gameplay is essentially another duality. You spend one half of the game playing detective inside Black Gate as Matches, and the other a more traditional Batman Arkham game as...well, Batman
It feels like it tries to channel a lot more of Arkham Asylum - while you do spend the first half hour or so in the larger Gotham area, the path you're allowed to take is very linear and the rest of the game is spent inside of Black Gate. This gives the game a larger sense of focus, but also makes it feel lesser in some regards
Instead of the previous Riddler trophies, we have instead Rat King propaganda and Rat King statues, all of which you can pick up and smash, and as you'd expect, absolutely everything is done with the motion controllers
For the first few hours, this is really cool - being Batman, being the one beating the snot out of TYGER guards and Blackgate inmates is such a cool feeling. But a lot like the Wii before it, I get tired really, really quickly - this is made even worse with the motion sickness problem I mentioned earlier
Skill issue? Perhaps, but it also leads into the larger, more all-encompassing issue that overshadowed the whole game:
As cool as the game was...I still would've vastly preferred a more traditional, third person Arkham game on PC/Console. Something more like just Asylum again
I liked Arkham Shadow. I really, really liked it - I'm deeply satisfied with my purchase and I'm glad to have gotten into VR. But this doesn't feel like a game that needed to be in VR. It lends itself to some really cool visuals and really cool moments - but I would've traded those for not feeling dizzy and needing to put it down every few hours so I didn't puke
it's easy to be really down about the star wars sequels, but t his photo of kelly marie tran crying and hugging a fan cosplaying rose has always been really sweet to me
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