Last year’s Batman: Arkham Knight was meant to be the last game starring the caped crusader made by Rocksteady Studios. However, Sony’s E3 conference revealed that this will not be the case, as the British developer is prepping a PlayStation VR exclusive titled Batman: Arkham VR.
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Despite being part of the same series, the new game will make a significant detour from the open-world action that typified previous Arkham releases. Instead, we’ll see a much bigger focus on Batman’s skills as a detective, as he becomes embroiled in a deeply personal murder mystery.
By donning the PlayStation VR headset, players will be able to be the bat like never before, carrying out their investigation from a first-person viewpoint beneath the cowl. It seems likely that gameplay will be based on the detective mode sections from earlier Arkham titles, but there was no in-game footage to be found in the trailer.
However, we did hear the unmistakable voice of Mark Hamill as The Joker, taunting Batman about his masked persona. The Arkham series has often been criticized for an over-reliance on the clown prince of crime, but it’s easy to see how a compelling performance from Hamill could benefit a VR experience like this one — his frequent conversations with Batman in Arkham Knight were among the best parts of the game.
Arkham VR is set to give players access to a few key elements of the Batman experience that were absent from the rest of the series. The game will allow players to explore Wayne Manor before taking the plunge down into the Batcave, according to a post written by principal designer Bill Green for the PlayStation Blog.
Unlike some of the other big reveals from E3 2016, Arkham VR isn’t too far from release. Rocksteady Studios plans to have the game ready to launch in October 2016, which puts it squarely in PlayStation VR’s planned release window.