Why Batman: Arkham Shadow is the future of video games, not just VR gaming

"The Game Award goes to... Batman: Arkham Shadow!" was the announcement from Sydnee Goodman for the Best VR / AR Game at The Game Awards 2024.

Ryan Payton, founder and studio director at Camouflaj which developed the game for Meta Quest, accepted the award and thanked his team: "I want to accept this award on behalf of my colleagues at Camouflaj; you guys did some of the best work of your careers and the best is yet to come."

That might sound like something you'd expect an award recipient to say but there are a couple of incredibly key details.

Batman: Arkham Shadow is the best VR AR game yet and it's up there with the very best video games of the year, regardless of platform.

And for Payton to say "the best is yet to come" hints at the brightest future for VR gaming and how it stands in the world of video games as a whole.

Let's unpick that by starting with the game itself.

Batman: Arkham Shadow is, of course, a return to the beloved Arkham series that's very familiar to video game fans.

Arkham Knight released back in 2015 with the short Arkham: VR following that in 2016 and for the series to return at all in 2024 was highly risky, let alone again in the sphere of VR.

"We had to become experts fast in the world of Arkham, we knew expectations were going to be high and we knew the game was going to be bundled with the Meta Quest 3," Payton said in an interview with indy100 at Meta's offices in King's Cross, London a few weeks before The Game Awards and soon after the game was released.

"Very high expectations and you just never know when the game comes out how people are going to respond to it.

"As I got deeper into the Arkham universe, I realised this is much deeper than I thought on the surface and the fans are still very passionate and care deeply.

"That's when I started to get sacred about disappointing people and disappointing fans."

No pressure.

Batman in Arkham Shadow Camouflaj, Meta Quest

But Camouflaj absolutely knocked it out of the park with a compelling story, incredibly innovative gameplay and, most importantly, making you feel like you're Batman in every sense, whether that's through the story itself or gameplay when exploring and navigating the world, in detective mode and fighting bad guys and bosses.

That might seem an obvious thing to say, what with it being a VR game, but maintaining that immersion is key, which Batman: Arkham Shadow manages to do throughout, adding a completely different element to something that would be still be a great game on a normal screen.

"The response to it has been very warm and if anything, it's energised the team," Payton said. "I'm extremely proud of the content and everyone involved.

"When we looked at the timeline, we saw there was a large gap between Origins and Asylum that could give us enough room to explore and for me personally, I immediately gravitated to telling a story earlier in Batman's career.

"Having replayed Origins, I was reminded of how unrefined Batman was as a character in that game and that gave us a lot of room to grow him as a character.

"It didn't take much research to find out that fans love Joker and Riddler, especially Joker, but it seemed there could be too much of a good thing and it was time for something different.

"Very early on, we knew we wanted to do a new villain, the Rat King, and have that enemy allow us to explore different topics and themes."

Batman: Arkham Shadow shows the type of video games players know and love can be enhanced even further through VR in a way only that platform can provide.

VR is still emerging to an extent, there have been some technical issues with Batman: Arkham Shadow reported to the developers by players when it came out and soon after that, but Camouflaj still currently has its entire team working on updates to improve it with a huge new update that recently released.

And it's going to stay that way for a while.

Payton said: "Even though Arkham Shadow isn't on a platform many expected the next Arkham game to be on, what we're doing by leaning into this technology is allowing us to provide a player experience unlike anything they could experience on a flat screen.

"We're not moving on to the next project right now, or even in the next few months, we're 100 per cent dedicated to updating the game, adding free content and making it better and better.

"When we truly wrap up development of Arkham Shadow, we want to look back and say that's a complete game that's extremely smooth and pristine in its presentation, that we didn't hold anything back.

"The fans deserve so much credit for why Arkham is still a relevant franchise - it's because of them, and when they tell us how happy they are, or are excited about the updates we're doing, that means the world to us."

Update 1.2 for Batman: Arkham Shadow has brought new combat challenges for players Camouflaj, Meta Quest

Batman: Arkham Shadow is a triumph in what can be achieved in the world of VR gaming and offers such an exciting glimpse of just how far it can go and what's coming up.

"2024 has been the strongest year for VR content yet and I hope this is the beginning of the end of - understandably given it used to be this way - VR games being known as 'experiences' or 'short form' in public perception," Payton said.

"Now we can look at the landscape and celebrate dozens of titles that are big and have high production values.

"Most importantly, it provides experiences to players they can't get on flat screen games - not that they're necessarily better, or worse, but it's different.

"I couldn't be more excited about it as developers are learning, growing and it's fun to think about where games can get to in just one or two years from now."

Just imagine the latest titles in some of your very favourite video game series and genres being developed, reimagined and driven forward in VR without losing any of the quality... That felt like just a dream before.

But Batman: Arkham Shadow shows it's a reality.

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