Batman: Arkham VR (2016)
Taking ‘Be the Batman’ to a whole new level…
In an impressive showcase of the immersion that’s possible in virtual reality, Arkham VR is too short. Still, that does little to take away from both its polish, and its power.
Developed by Rocksteady Studios
Published by WB Games
Released on PlayStation 4 (Played), PC
If you’re a longstanding fan of the character going back to childhood, then it would be really surprising if you never dreamed of being Batman.
Whether you’ve dreamed of driving his car, throwing his batarangs, punching his enemies or simply wearing his costume, the fantasy of being Batman is a powerful one, and is one of the things that likely accounts for why he has as many fans across the planet as he does. In 2009, Batman: Arkham Asylum from Rocksteady Studios came along, arguably giving global audiences their best chance yet to fulfill the fantasy of actually being Batman.
Two Rocksteady-developed games later, the Arkham series in its entirety tells a compelling story giving a whole new angle to Batman’s legend, from its earliest origins all the way to an abrupt, but victorious end. Conceivably with the mainline Arkham series now in the proverbial rear-view mirror, what more could the series’ original creators do in order to give audiences an even greater chance at fulfilling the fantasy of becoming Batman? The answer is by combining it with a format that has only very recently become possible for people to bring into their living rooms: virtual reality.
Batman: Arkham VR serves as a launch title for Sony’s ambitious PlayStation VR platform, serving as a showcase for the kind of immersion that’s possible when you combine the promise of true virtual reality with the skill and pedigree of a world-class game development studio. While this experience is rather significantly shorter than what we’ve become accustomed to in the mainline Arkham games, that does little to take away from the fact that this is an experience that — for Batman fans — is likely to be both deeply stirring and incredibly hypnotic.
It’s hard to describe the feeling of reaching out with your hands and putting on the Batsuit, as well as what it’s like to actually be surrounded by the brilliantly-realized Gotham City designed by Rocksteady.
Design and Story
Very clearly descending from the mainline game series, Arkham VR is very easily identifiable as being a part of the same world as the likes of Asylum, City and Knight. For the most part, the character models have been designed with the core aesthetic ethos of the main games, though the proportions on some of them look like they’ve been adjusted to account for the real-life dimensions of the people actually playing the game from its first-person perspective. This is most apparent in characters like the Penguin and Killer Croc, whom you can encounter in different ways over the course of the game.
Where Arkham VR goes into a bit of its own territory is with the environmental designs. While the opening screen and the levels taking place in Gotham City proper certainly evoke the city particularly as we saw it in Arkham Knight, a couple of new environments and design flourishes help to make this game feel like a world you can actually occupy. For instance, we get to explore the primary Batcave for the first time since Arkham Origins, and it’s laid out in such a way that it allows you to take in almost the majesty of the waterfalls, the display pieces (hello, T-rex) and the advanced technology strewn throughout.
There are also other city environments to explore that are almost defined by a dark sense of foreboding that seems far more informed by some of the design philosophy that permeated Arkham Asylum, but it takes on a whole new level of creepiness when your VR headset puts you into the middle of those environments.
Story-wise, the game takes place immediately preceding the events of Arkham Knight. Batman is still freely operating in Gotham, and when your allies have not performed their customary check-in, you have to go out into the night and try to put mysteries surrounding Robin and Nightwing together in order to save them. It’s a very basic setup that will likely lead to at least one legitimate shock for Bat-fans while playing, and while the whole ordeal is a pretty short experience likely clocking in at 2-3 hours, the end result of the story offers unique additional insight into the state of affairs in Batman’s mind at the beginning of Arkham Knight.
Looking into a mirror only to see the Batman looking back at you is one of the single most effective methods of immersion employed in any Rocksteady Batman game, only possible through virtual reality.
In terms of the emotional power on display through the story, the game actually begins by reacquainting you with Batman’s origin story: the murders of Thomas and Martha Wayne at the hands of the pathetic hood Joe Chill. While on its face Bat-fans may be ordinarily justified in having to relive the Wayne murders yet again, Arkham VR is — for me — the single most powerful representation of Batman’s genesis that I’ve ever witnessed. The reason why is that it puts you in the alley as it happens.
The game even adjusts your height so that you’re looking up at the horrifying event as it happens in the dimly-lit Crime Alley, and Chill himself even gets in your face in a last flash of intimidation before he disappears into the night like the coward he is. When he’s up in your face, you can even see the grime in his teeth. The only thing missing is the smell of gun smoke and bad breath.
Using the Wayne murders as the first major immersive instance of the game is a pretty brilliant stroke on the part of Rocksteady, intimately reacquainting the player with the shock, sadness and anger that drives Batman every night that he steps out onto the streets. It’s a startling contrast when compared with how the game ends, involving at least one horrifying and deeply-unsettling smile that Bat-fans have never seen quite like this.
That being said, it’s not totally unfair to say that this game is little more than a glorified prologue to the events of Arkham Knight.When it utilizes virtual reality this effectively, though, all I’m left saying is...that’s one hell of a prologue.
Even if you’re a Batman fan who’s seen countless depictions of the murders of Thomas and Martha Wayne in the past, trust me: nothing can prepare you for the way you witness Batman’s genesis in virtual reality.
Gameplay
In terms of the way that a player actually interfaces with the world of Arkham VR, this is where the biggest clear differences with the main series lie. Combat — a core, defining element of the mainline Arkham games — is entirely absent in this experience, as the primary objectives call upon you to use Batman’s detective skills and the occasional gadget to put the facts together surrounding a couple of mysterious events.
The game familiarizes you with exactly how it works right from the beginning. As you start in a beautiful living room inside Wayne Manor, you use motion controllers to turn your hands into Bruce Wayne’s and tap a couple of keys on a nearby piano. In one of the first fantastically jaw-dropping moments of the game, you then begin descending into the Batcave as you start suiting up for one long night.
When you place your hands in a container and pull out the gauntlet-ed gloves of the Batman, there’s no way around how cool that is. Then, you grab the mask, place it on your head, and a mirror emerges and looking back at you is...him. You have become Batman for the duration of this game, and even that simple image is incredibly empowering. Then, as you descend further and the structures inside the Cave come into further view...it’s simply mesmerizing.
In lieu of any real good theme park attractions that offer up a Batman experience on par with something like The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios or Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at a Disney park, this is probably the closest you’ll get to feeling like you’re actually entering the headquarters of Gotham City’s guardian. It’s just incredible.
Inside the Cave, you familiarize yourself with the ways in which you can interact with the world. You can freely move your head around any of the environments you find yourself in, but you can’t actually walk or run anywhere. While this is a restrictive element of the game, it’s also designed to try and mitigate any feelings of potential discomfort particularly for people prone to motion sickness. To move around environments, you can either use the grapnel gun on your belt to instantly shoot yourself to a new vantage point, or you can access other parts of an area and instantly “blink” over to it. It’s a little immersion-breaking, but again, that trade-off makes the game pretty comfortable to play from either a sitting or standing position.
The story of the game calls on you to come to the aid of some of Batman’s longstanding allies, including Tim Drake/Robin. It’s kind of deceptive, though, since the place that the story ends up is a very willful curveball designed to disorient the player over the course of the full experience.
In addition to being able to play with various computer systems in the cave, you can also access databases to interact with different holographic recreations of both artifacts from the previous games — like Bane’s mask in Arkham Asylum or Riddler’s cane from Arkham City — as well as full-size characters: allies and enemies alike. This gives you the chance to look up into the monstrosity that is Killer Croc as he stands several hulking feet above you, as well as to look directly into the hateful, unsettling eyes of the Joker.
The Cave also allows you to play a targeting challenge by throwing Batarangs from your utility belt. You have an infinite supply of them affixed to the front of the belt, so all you need to do is reach down and grab one and you’re immediately holding it in your hand. The Batarang challenge is honestly some of the most basic, repeatable fun that you can have in the game, and you can actually work up quite a sweat as you try and break your previous records and shave just a few seconds off your completion time.
While combat is absent from the game, there’s at least one instance that calls on you to survey a rooftop scene with the Penguin before tossing down some Batarangs and interrogating the man himself so he can point you to your next location. It’s a little short and limited to this one segment, but it does faithfully represent the “invisible predator” element of the main games in a limited capacity, and any Batman fan knows that it’s always satisfying making the Penguin squeal in horror.
Most of the game calls on you to interact with parts of the environments you explore, and to use your newest gadget — the “forensic scanner” — to process crime scenes and evidence and begin putting the pieces of the mysteries you’re following together. The new gadget of the scanner is the way that the game accounts for the absence of another Arkham series staple, your “detective vision” that’s built into Batman’s cowl. Detective vision’s inclusion in Arkham VR would likely take a fair amount of the difficulty, exploration and length out of the experience, so the forensic scanner makes for a fine compromise.
After processing a few different environments and using your gadgets to put the pieces of the mysteries in front of you together, the game drops you into the final environment as you witness the major revelation that the whole experience offers, leading you straight into the physical and mental battles that Batman must embark upon in Arkham Knight.
Causing the coward that is the Penguin to squeal in horror by inflicting terror as the Batman is something that never gets old, and is uniquely more satisfying when you can get in Penguin’s face through a VR headeset.
Overall
While all of the elements combine into a well-designed and impeccably immersive experience, it is hard to avoid the fact that there’s just not an abundance of game here to play. What is here is very good, but it does feel a little thin by the time you get to the end of it. That’s the core criticism to be leveled at this: if you’re a committed Batman fan and Arkham player, a deep dive into this game will cause you to absolutely devour everything it has to offer in relatively short order. Considering the story that the game aims to tell, it also doesn't take a lot to imagine that some players will reach the end a little dissatisfied at the...nature of the story, as well.
Still, with all that being said, it’s also just as true that this is a Rocksteady-developed Batman experience through-and-through. That means world-class design work, incredible detail in the characters and environments, unmistakable immersion in Gotham City and haunting accuracy in recreating Batman’s most formative event. The story also seeks to tell you something about the mind of the man underneath the mask, and will also likely do a fair job of unsettling you by the time you get to the end of the story.
Batman: Arkham VR does not and cannot stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the other games in the series. At the same time, though, it doesn’t seek to do that at all. For what it is, it’s an incredible justification for why now is the time for VR to take a larger leap into the living rooms of gamers, and offers up the most effective and immersive way someone can experience what it might be like to actually be Batman.
What’s here is well-performed, well-designed and very well-executed. It’s really hard not to wish that there was just...more of it.