Batman: Arkham Shadow review – A classic Arkham game from a new perspective

If you’ve ever looked at Batman: Arkham combat and wondered how exhausting it must be for Batman to launch himself around the room destroying a horde of goons in acrobatic fashion, do I have the game for you. 

Thankfully, the ability to backflip off someone’s spinal column isn’t required to play Batman: Arkham Shadow, the latest entry in the series made for VR platforms. You don’t really need to worry about being physically fit, as this game paces itself well, mixing in the energetic combat with exploration and puzzle-solving sections that give you plenty of time to cool down – something my large stomach and I are thankful for.

The combat does a great job of mimicking the frantic energy of Arkham’s button-mashing, just in small doses, so you don’t overwork yourself. Like in the other games, throwing a punch sees you glide across the floor as your fist is magnetized to your target’s face, but rather than just letting you wildly throw punches, striking an enemy pulls you into one of several quick combos. It might make you swing from specific directions, hit certain spots, and occasionally go all out, pummeling a guy with as many punches as you can as quickly as possible.

It’s not just endlessly throwing punches either, as there are a bunch of different combat options. Sometimes you’ll need to reach down to your side and swish your cape out to stun an enemy, other times you’ll need to perform specific inputs on your Touch Plus controllers to disarm targets, and you can even reach for your utility belt and whip out one of the Caped Crusader’s many gadgets.

It’s impressive how well the Arkham combat system is translated into VR like this, to the point where playing it still feels like an Arkham game, even though the format is completely different.

It’s not just the combat that manages this either – the predator sections are just as well translated. While you don’t have quite as many tools at your disposal, grappling around vantage points, dropping down, and slowly taking out targets one by one is just as much fun as it was in the console games. It keeps that feeling of being a, well…predator, as the remaining guards slowly get more freaked out with each of their colleagues they find unconscious, knowing they’re next. Actually peeking your head around a corner really pulls you in. 

As I said before, these more energetic sections are broken up with a variety of calmer stuff. A bunch of infiltration missions make you carefully assess your environment – with the help of Detective Mode, a kind of X-ray vision – to solve puzzles and open the way ahead without being seen. While none of the puzzles on the critical path are especially complex, this is supplemented with a host of mini-puzzles and secrets scattered around the place that reward you with collectibles, making sure you can have a decent challenge.

The other way it breaks up the time between combat is with the story, which surprised me by being one of the game's strongest aspects. A good narrative isn’t something I particularly expect from a VR game, but this is definitely one of the titles leading the way in that area, as this game’s story easily lives up to the other titles in the series.

Centering around the Rat King, Batman has to live something of a double life, posing as a prisoner by day to get closer to his target and gather intel, then infiltrating the prison as Batman by night to make progress. The game balances these two sides well, typically using the day for more narrative-focused sections before you see all your action during the night when you don the Bat’s iconic outfit.

It may not revolutionize VR game design like Half-Life: Alyx, but Batman: Arkham Shadow is a great example of what the platform can be with a triple-A budget. All of the key mechanics that make the Arkham series what it is are translated brilliantly to this new format, leading to a game that fits right in with what came before while still feeling like a bold step forward.