Batman: Arkham fans rejoice—a new Arkham title is being added to the Arkhamverse. It's a Meta Quest 3 exclusive and not an ordinary title on regular platforms, but this also means that Warner Bros. And DC aren't done with the franchise just yet. Players will enter a virtual reality of Gotham and get the full Batman experience, which means grappling to high points, flinging batarangs at enemies, and silently taking them down. Along with core Arkham elements, players will meet Ratcatcher face-to-face and encounter other twisted criminals in the city.
Camouflaj worked closely with Warner Bros. And DC to release the game on Meta Quest 3. Camouflaj Founder and Studio Head Ryan Payton spoke to The Best War Games in a recent interview about the extensive process that the studio went on to incorporate "authentic" mechanics, storytelling, and more into Batman: Arkham Shadow. Payton also teased the game's major antagonist, the origin-like takes on fan-favorite villains, and how Shadow differs from Rocksteady Studios' 2016 Arkham VR. The following transcript was edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: Can you please tell us about yourself and Batman: Arkham Shadow?
Payton: My name is Ryan Payton. I'm the head of Camouflaj, which is the lead developer on Batman: Arkham Shadow. This is technically our third VR title, the previous one being Marvel's Iron Man VR, which we shipped originally on PlayStation VR back in 2020.
We've been building VR games for almost 10 years now. Before that, and before I started Camouflaj as an independent studio, I was creative director on Halo 4 over at Microsoft. Then I was a producer on the Metal Gear Solid series, specifically Metal Gear Solid 4. I've been in the games industry since 2004/2005. I feel very, very lucky to be doing what I'm doing.
Q: The Batman: Arkham series is one of the most beloved video game series. What did you do to ensure that Batman: Arkham Shadow is authentic to the franchise?
Payton: It started from day one, partnering with Warner Bros. In DC. When we approached them about this idea we as Camouflaj—but also as Meta—felt like, "What would be more wonderful than to do a big VR game, exclusive to the Quest."
Well, at that time, we didn't know that those could be called the Quest 3, and not only doing it with the Batman franchise but with the Batman Arkham franchise, which is a franchise that we've all loved. We knew that we thought [we could] really kind of flesh out an experience that was an authentic new entry to the franchise and took all of the core elements that everybody loves from the Arkham franchise—whether it's the exploration or the combat or the investigations—to bring all those elements built rebuilt from the ground up for VR, that could be a really special experience that would put players into the mind and body of Batman in a way that they haven't ever experienced before.
It also could just be a celebration and evolution of a lot of these core arcs and mechanics. That is basically the core DNA of the project that thankfully Warner Bros. Greenlit and allowed us to make. Almost four years now, we're looking at what we just announced, and now we're looking at, you know, shipping it this fall.
Q: Were there any challenges or expectations that you felt needed to be met while developing this game?
Payton: The first step was to really just partner closely with our friends at Warner Bros. And DC because they are the experts. They understand the timeline better than anybody and we know that we're playing in their sandbox to a large extent, so it's making sure that we have those weekly calls that we're peppering them with every single question you can possibly imagine: "Hey, back in Arkham City, this character mentions this thing that happened in the past—what really happened there?”
Sometimes they had answers that the fans aren't aware of, and they would divulge and teach us about. Other times, they said, "Actually, that hasn't been really developed, and if that's something you guys wanna develop, go ahead and do it."
It's been like that for the last four years; it's felt like a really perfectly balanced partnership in which they are guiding us to fit within the confines of the established timeline and Batman mythology characters, but also giving us a lot of freedom to explore areas of the story that haven't been built. In my opinion, a perfect partnership is where you can strike that balance.
Q: Can you talk about what makes Ratcatcher a formidable antagonist for this game?
Payton: Ratcatcher was one of the characters that very early on we knew we wanted to explore. He's teased in almost all of the mainline Arkham games with maybe the exception of Arkham VR and you could find his gloves—his gas mask hidden in Arkham Asylum and Arkham Origins, and he's got some entries about him in Arkham City. We wanted to finally allow players to see him in the flesh in VR, get up close in person with Otis Flannegan, with Ratcatcher.
I find him to be a very interesting character. Our game is set after the events, well, between Arkham Origins and Arkham Asylum. One of the things we did was we dug deep into his character and the fact that he is a bit crestfallen coming off of the events of Arkham Origins. He put his faith and belief into Black Mask or seemingly thought he was doing that. But as players who've played Origins, realized that it wasn't actually [Roman] Sionis who was behind Black Mask and was actually Joker.
Ratcatcher, I think, is left in a pretty vulnerable position at the start of our game. Somebody who has put his beliefs into a powerful character in the world, and how does that factor into the introduction of a brand-new villain that we've worked on with Warner Bros. And DC to bring to the universe, which is called the Rat King. How Ratcatcher relates to the Rat King is something that we're excited for players to explore.
Batman: Arkham Shadow’s Place in the Arkhamverse Timeline Explained
Batman: Arkham Shadow's reveal teaser and external sources leave blatant clues for players to discern where it falls in the Arkhamverse timeline.
Q: Can you talk about the character design for the Rat King?
Payton: The character design for the Rat King is essentially very cryptic. We're going to be able to show more of him as we go deeper into the campaign leading up to launch, but we wanted to add a fresh take on a villain where players don't have any kind of preconceived notions of what that character is.
I think when we're developing the cast and characters of Arkham Shadow, you can see from that trailer we've got new iterations or origin-like takes on some classic characters such as Harley Quinn and Scarecrow—that's Jonathan Crane there outside of the courthouse.
We have Ratcatcher, but you first see him as Otis Flannegan. We're bringing so much of the Arkham lore and the deeper DC history of these characters along with them into Arkham Shadow, but with the Rat King it was an opportunity for us to more or less start with a blank slate and do something that served the story and surprised players without them having to worry too much about, "I don't know what, hypothetically, the Rat King did in DC and Detective Comics #3604 [laugh]." It was really just an opportunity to do something fresh and new.
You're mentioning the different characters that were shown in the trailer and the [DC] history. So by adding all of this, what does that add to the Batman: Arkham Shadow storyline?
Payton: For Batman: Arkham Shadow, we are intentionally placing it fairly early into Bruce Wayne's career as Batman. It's set between Arkham Origin s and Arkham Asylum and we very intentionally partnered with the voice of Batman from Arkham Origins, Roger Craig Smith, to bring his talents to Batman and be a depiction of him being quite early in his career—he's young, he's strong, he's powerful, he's had some success as Batman, and there's some arrogance that comes along with that as well.
When he comes face to face with the Rat King and what his followers are doing to the city that he loves—Gotham City, and his approach as Batman in VR. We wanted to put Batman through a pretty trying emotional journey that takes him into some pretty dark places, which I think is emblematic of any good Batman tale, but also very emblematic of what we like to do as Camouflaj in terms of telling meaningful stories.
Q: What are some differences between Arkham VR and Arkham Shadow?
Payton: We looked very closely at Arkham VR and we're huge fans of that title. It took a lot of inspiration in terms of their depiction of Batman being able to look down and see that you were in the full bat suit. But unlike Arkham VR, we have the full arms, the full gauntlets, and the full body as Batman. You look down and you can see your gauntlets; you have the grapple gun in your hand, like you do in Arkham VR. [We wanted to] make sure that that level of detail that the Rocksteady team did such a terrific job with in Arkham VR was extended to our take on a fully realized Arkham game in VR.
Thankfully, our friends at Meta were really big believers in giving us enough time to build a fully extensive, large-scale VR title where we took the core Arkham elements from the ground up and rebuilt them for VR. Everything you would expect from an Arkham title has been built specifically for VR to leverage the strengths of VR, whether it's the exploration that you have in the Arkham titles, combat boss battles, investigations, [and] cinematics—all of those elements are a big part of the Arkham Shadow experience that will extend into a game length that I think is fairly comparable to Arkham Asylum. We're not exactly sure how long the game is because it's still in development, but it's definitely going to be longer than our previous title, Marvel’s Iron Man VR.
Q: Players will be equipped with Batman tech, like the grapnel gun and the gliding cape. Why do you think these gadgets are so crucial for that Batman experience?
Payton: We felt, just like I'm sure [fans] feel, that if there's going to be a new entry in the Arkham franchise, it needs to be authentic; it needs to be true to that franchise. Whether it's translating the ability to grapple up to high places with the grapple gun, and then get them to a vantage point and look down on your enemies from a position of power and have a classic Predator encounter like you do in the other Arkham titles.
You can throw down a smoke bomb; you can fling a batarang to distract an enemy, glide down behind them, take them out silently, and then escape through a vent that may take you to another area to take down more enemies. All of that is part of the core gameplay loop of Arkham Shadow. What's really important to us [is] how people imagine a fully realized Arkham game would work in VR is actually what we're delivering.
Q: You're talking about [Arkham’s] combat and stealth. How will that be translated into the VR realm?
Payton: One of the things that I think we really respect about the Arkham franchise is that it struck this really beautiful balance in terms of there being enough of a challenge for it to be very engaging, especially on the combat side, where sometimes it can get pretty difficult taking on a dozen or so enemies in which you are trying to build up a combo. You get interrupted and have to do a counter. You get pulled over to focus on another enemy and then you might use a gadget or a smoke bomb to gain an advantage and be able to take out these enemies.
I think that's a perfect balance that the Rocksteady team was able to establish with Arkham Asylum and with subsequent titles. Now, through the filter of VR, we're trying to provide the same kind of experience for players who already own a Meta Quest 3 or who are new to the platform, hopefully when the game comes out.
I'll take a quick aside and tell you a story about when I first played Arkham Asylum back in 2009. I remember being really blown away by just how fresh the game felt and how, even though there were so many interesting mechanics, I never felt overwhelmed. I think that's the same kind of philosophy that we're taking with Arkham Shadow because we assume that there's going to be a lot of people experiencing VR for the first time with this large, pretty well-supported VR title. We want our Batman: Arkham Shadow to be the first entry for VR for a lot of players and for them to fall in love with this technology that we're so smitten by through this game.
Q: You may have touched on this a little bit, but given that this game is falling in between Origins and Asylum, how did you take into account any character changes being in that certain timeframe?
Payton: On May 1, we announced the game and we debuted our teaser trailer, which included a somewhat abstract representation of what the game story was going to be. Also, we just littered it with a dozen or so Easter eggs that were specifically built for the Arkham fans to tease them or hint to them what type of game we're building here. One of those elements that a lot of the community didn't seem to find was an Easter egg that we borrowed from Arkham Origins that teased the origin of Dr. Jonathan Crane, who eventually obviously becomes Scarecrow.
That's an example of something that we're integrating—not just into the teaser trailer, but into the game itself; taking those core elements that were developed by Rocksteady and Warner Bros. Montreal and using those as foundational materials for us to build this first-time representation of Scarecrow before he becomes Scarecrow and how fun it's been to develop that.
I'll give you a teaser that I haven't shared with anybody else—we absolutely love John Noble's performance as Scarecrow in Arkham Knight. However, I think anybody who remembers how he performed the character, he sounds like he's much older, and we wanted to explore this younger version of Jonathan Crane. We have a new actor who's tackling Dr. Jonathan Crane in a way that's extremely exciting and hopefully we'll be able to unveil more about who that is at a subsequent beat.
Q: You bring up Scarecrow, and you brought up Harley Quinn earlier. Will we see any other characters in this game?
Payton: Absolutely, yeah. I think this story trailer is a fairly accurate representation in terms of the tone and the story we want to tell and the characters that are going to be present in our game, but it's not comprehensive whatsoever. We focus on a handful of vignettes and again, this is a really beautiful story trailer, but there are many more characters to reveal.
There are many more locations that we're going to take players, as Batman, and explore in VR. That's something that I think is going to [laughs] overwhelm the audience when they see our gameplay trailer in August at gamescom.
[END]
Batman: Arkham Shadow
- Released
- October 21, 2024
- ESRB
- T For Teen // Violence, Mild Blood, Language
Become Batman in this official new entry into the Arkham franchise.
It’s the Fourth of July, and Gotham City is under attack by a new threat: the mysterious Rat King and his cultish devotees. As widespread rioting engulfs the city, Batman races to prevent this so-called “Day of Wrath” before it all goes wrong.
Experience the World of Batman Like Never Before:
Immerse yourself in all the grit of Gotham City with the power of VR, and take down its most notorious criminals.
Hard-Hitting Arkham Combat
Realized exclusively for VR—choose from fan favorite gadgets and bold fighting styles reimagined from the beloved Arkham franchise.
Friends, Foes and Other Familiar Faces:
Meet Dr.’s Quinzel and Crane before they became Harley Quinn and Scarecrow, as well as other iconic characters including Harvey Dent, Jim Gordon, and Ratcatcher.
- Developer(s)
- Camouflaj
- Publisher(s)
- Oculus
- Franchise
- Batman: Arkham
- Platform(s)
- Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest 3S
- Genre(s)
- Action, Virtual Reality
