With the announcement of a new VR Batman game, fans have made their disappointment apparent via YouTube comments.
Table of Contents
The Batman Arkham Shadow teaser
The Batman Arkham series from developer Rocksteady is beloved by fans. Ever since the conclusion of Arkham Knight and the absolute failure that is Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, it’s understandable that players want a brand-new entry that played like the old games did. This is most definitely not what Batman Arkham Shadow is.
A teaser trailer on YouTube focuses on a rat for a few seconds before we see things from Bruce Wayne’s POV as he watches the disgusting creature. He glides down into a dark alley and is immediately swarmed by dozens of rodents. Batman tosses a smoke bomb onto the ground before the camera zooms out and shows us the title of the game. Given the presence of rats in the teaser, many YouTube commenters believe that DC villain Ratcatcher (who can train and control rats to do his bidding) will be the antagonist of Arkham Shadow.
Arkham Shadow is being made exclusively for the Meta Quest 3 and is dropping later this year. The developer is Camouflaj, who was responsible for creating an Iron Man VR released in 2022, as well as République, a game where you help a teenager escape from a facility set in a dystopian world. Arkham fans aren’t exactly jumping for joy at this time. They’re disappointed at the fact that this isn’t a traditional Arkham game and many made their thoughts heard in the comment section of the Arkham Shadow teaser.
This isn’t the first rodeo the Arkham series has had when it comes to VR games. Batman Arkham VR was released back in 2016 for PSVR and involved the Caped Crusader investigating the disappearances of Nightwing (Dick Grayson) and Robin (Tim Drake), members of the Bat-Family and partners of Bruce Wayne’s alter-ego.
What is the Batman Arkham series?
Back in 2009, developer Rocksteady released Batman: Arkham Asylum to the gaming public, who adored the dark atmosphere, gameplay, and story of the game, which saw the Dark Knight being trapped in the titular mental asylum by the Joker and fighting to end the clown’s latest scheme. It’s also the game that popularized the Freeflow Combat system, which usually involves punching and countering an enemy’s attack, with the occasional beatdown on one enemy tossed in to spice things up and make obese gamers the world over feel like a true badass. Copies of that system have popped up in other games like Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and the Mad Max video game (hey, if it’s good, why not plagiarize it?).
This story was followed up in Batman: Arkham City, Arkham Origins (which wasn’t made by Rocksteady and was a prequel detailing the first meeting between the Joker and Batman), and Arkham Knight because the first game printed money, so why not make more? All of these entries are beloved because of their gameplay and the stories each of them tells (except maybe Arkham Knight in regards to the story).
Excluding Arkham Origins, each Arkham game featured the voices of Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, the same voice actors for Batman and the Joker for Batman: The Animated Series (BTAS), which added an additional layer of coolness since both understood their respective characters extremely well and had great chemistry, character-wise and in real life.
The latest entry in the Arkham universe is Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which has G-woman Amanda Waller employing four villains (Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, and King Shark) to put bullets through the skulls of all Justice League members. The League is being mind-controlled by Brainiac, another DC villain who wants to terraform Earth. This game hasn’t been well-received by the gaming public because of its gameplay as well as for its poor treatment of its characters, Batman included.
Kill the Justice League was the last time Kevin Conroy voiced Batman in a video game since Conroy died back in 2022 (he recorded dialogue for the game before he died). However, the versions of Batman and the Joker that Conroy and Hamill played in BTAS will appear in Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Three, meaning that this movie will be the actual last time fans will get to hear Kevin Conroy voicing Gotham’s vengeful son. It’s also probably the last time fans will hear Mark Hamill voicing the Joker since he previously said he wouldn’t voice the Jester of Genocide anymore now that Conroy is dead.
