Arkham game is a VR exclusive

Batman: Arkham Shadow has been announced as a Meta Quest 3 exclusive title launching sometime in 2024. Word comes directly from Meta itself via its official blog. This will be the first entry in the Arkham series since Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham VR in 2016 for the PSVR. A full reveal is planned for the June 7 Summer Game Fest showcase.

With Rocksteady having shifted focus to the poorly received Suicide Squad earlier this year, development duties on Batman: Arkham Shadow fell to Camouflaj and Oculus Studios. Camoflaj has previously worked on Iron Man VR and Republique. The soft announcement was made with a short teaser trailer showing Batman’s return to Gotham, though with no actual gameplay.

What is Batman: Arkham Shadow?

Details about what Batman: Arkham Shadow will be about are very thin at the moment. Currently, we know that we will be back in Gotham for a brand new story that will fit in with the existing Arkham franchise. It is being developed exclusively as a VR title and aims to take advantage of all the unique opportunities the Meta Quest 3 provides. Camouflaj claims this will be the largest VR project the studio has ever undertaken, though how that translates to length or gameplay is still a mystery. The team acknowledges the heavy expectations taking on this IP brings and hopes to do justice to the universe and characters established by Rocksteady.

Why a VR game?

While we did get one VR Batman experience from Rocksteady before it turned its attention to Suicide Squad, the main series has always been a traditional third-person action-adventure game. Even Arkham Origins, developed by WB Montreal, retained that same gameplay styling that the series found both critical and commercial success in. So, why make the choice to return to VR?

We don’t know any of the behind-the-scenes dealings here, but we know that this is a partnership between WB, DC, and Meta rather than being completely in-house as it was prior. I suspect that Camouflaj and Meta were able to license the Batman IP from WB, as they did for Iron Man, and chose themselves to create a VR title. Rocksteady has, to my knowledge, no involvement in this game.

Perhaps the poor reception of Suicide Squad and Gotham Knights (the latter of which wasn’t part of the same Arkham universe but shared the same basic gameplay) scared WB off from wanting to fully create a new Batman game itself and was willing to let Meta pay them for the IP as a safer investment. It’s too early to tell, but as VR games have been getting more and more robust, it’s possible this could be the best Batman game we get since 2015. Stay tuned for when more details drop on June 7.