During Summer Game Fest on Friday, developer Camouflaj and publisher Oculus Studios debuted the official story trailer for Batman: Arkham Shadow.
Revealed last month, Batman Arkham Shadow is a new VR game developed exclusively for the Meta Quest 3. The initial announcement trailer was light on details, though there were subtle hints as to who the game's main baddie would be. Now the new story trailer seems to confirm that it is indeed the Rat King behind the madness overtaking Gotham City.
"There's a new darkness overtaking Gotham--driving the city mad," Bruce Wayne says in the official trailer. "The only light left is from the fire in the streets casting shadows of rats on everything that was once good."
Roger Craig Smith will reprise his Arkham Origins role as Bruce Wayne/Batman, and developer Camouflaj confirms there will be a number of villain origin stories, including Scarecrow and Harley Quinn. Set to an instrumental cover of "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" by The Smashing Pumpkins, the trailer for Batman: Arkham Shadow has a dark and ominous tone to it. We see mention of the "Rat King" at the police station, with a frustrated Commissioner Gordon interrogating a suspect.
With the city ablaze and in chaos, Bruce Wayne notes: "Fear is their weapon, but they're not the only ones who can use it."
"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,” but it all goes wrong," the game's description reads.
Following the trailer's debut, IGN posted an article that delves into gameplay details for Batman: Arkham Shadow. Despite being a VR game, Camouflaj studio head Ryan Payton promises it will be a "full Arkham experience."
The game will utilize a combo-driven freeform combat system and even include the ability to glide down from above to pull off sneak attacks. The signature Detective Mode will allow players to perch from above and plan their series of stealth attacks. Players will also have the full suite of Batman's gadgets and tools at their disposal, including Batarangs, smoke bombs, and the Grapnel-gun.
“Batman: Arkham Shadow is very much inspired by Arkham Asylum in terms of scope and scale in terms of also the structure of the game,” Payton told IGN. “It’s exploration, like you have in Asylum – which includes free-flow locomotion, so using the Grapnel gun to zip over onto things, and do the slide, go through vents. All those elements that you’d expect from an Arkham game; it's gonna be driven in in large part by the moment-to-moment combat."
Payton revealed that the pitch to Warner Bros. was basically to take all of the cool gameplay elements from Arkham Asylum and "reimagine it for VR and make it work amazing for VR and actually have it feel like an evolution."
We'll get to find out just how well they pulled this off when Batman: Arkham Shadow releases this fall exclusively for Meta Quest 3.