Batman: Arkham VR

Batman: Arkham VR
Information
VR/AR	VR
Developer	Rocksteady Studios
Publisher	Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Platform	PlayStation 4, SteamVR, Oculus Rift (Platform)
Device	PlayStation VR, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift
Operating System	Windows
Type	Full Game
Genre	Adventure, VR, Batman
Input Device	Tracked Motion Controllers, PlayStation Move, Gamepad
Play Area	Seated, Standing
Game Mode	Single Player
Language	English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese-Brazil, Russian
Rating	Mature
Review	Mixed
Release Date	Oct 13, 2016 (PlayStation VR), Apr 25, 2017 (Windows)
Price	$19.99
App Store	Steam
Website	https://www.warnerbros.com/games-and-apps/batman-arkham-vr
Infobox Updated	09/29/2026

Batman: Arkham VR is a first-person virtual reality adventure game developed by Rocksteady Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Part of the Batman: Arkham series, it puts the player in the role of Batman, who investigates the disappearance of Nightwing and Robin through detective work and puzzle solving rather than combat.

The game launched in October 2016 as a PlayStation VR exclusive for the PlayStation 4, at the launch of the headset. A Windows version for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift followed on 25 April 2017. On Steam it is sold as a VR-only VR App with tracked controller and full gamepad support.

Critics praised how it let players see Gotham City from inside the Batsuit but criticized its length, about an hour for the main story in several reviews. Its PlayStation 4 version holds a Metascore of 74. It won Best VR Game at the 2016 Game Critics Awards, received two BAFTA Games Award nominations, and was the best-selling PS VR game of 2017 on the European PlayStation Store. It is a separate game from Batman: Arkham Shadow, the Arkham VR game from Camouflaj that was announced in 2024 as a Meta Quest 3 exclusive.

Reviewed 29 September 2026. Checked release dates, prices, platforms, controls, engine, story, review scores and quotes, aggregator scores, awards, sales and Steam data against the cited sources. About review dates.

Description

The official store description of the game reads:

Batman™: Arkham VR immerses you in the Dark Knight's Universe and redefines what it means to be the Batman.

Experience Gotham City through the eyes of the World's Greatest Detective in an all new Arkham mystery.

Think like Batman. Utilize his legendary gadgets in Virtual Reality to unravel a plot that threatens the lives of Batman's closest allies.

Gameplay

The game is played entirely from a first-person perspective. Rocksteady described it as a murder mystery centered on Batman's detective skills, and said it was the first of its Arkham stories to let players explore Wayne Manor and the Batcave. On PlayStation VR, two PlayStation Move controllers act as Batman's hands. PlayStation's product page lists the PlayStation Camera as required and Move controllers as optional, with the DualShock 4 also supported.

Batman's utility belt holds three tools: a grappling hook, a forensic scanner and Batarangs. Players pick up and examine objects, use the scanner on evidence and solve environmental puzzles to move the investigation forward. Movement uses teleportation between predetermined points rather than free locomotion, and UploadVR noted that the game was built for 180-degree tracking and can be played seated or standing. There is no hand-to-hand combat for the player; Road to VR's review noted that fights happen off-screen. In its review, Game Informer singled out a mirror in which Batman's reflection copies the player's movements.

The main story is short. Game Informer put it at 40 minutes to one hour, and Kotaku and UploadVR both described about an hour of story content. Road to VR estimated about two hours for its first playthrough. After the story is finished, 30 Riddler challenges become available for a second playthrough.

Story

The game is set after Batman: Arkham City. Nightwing and Robin have gone missing, and Batman investigates their disappearance while his butler, Alfred, repeatedly tells him what to do next. Rocksteady described the story as highly focused and personal, drawing on classic Batman comics and dark psychological themes.

Development

Rocksteady Studios announced Batman: Arkham VR at E3 in June 2016 as a PlayStation VR exclusive planned for October 2016. In the studio's announcement, principal designer Bill Green wrote that "the opportunity to create a completely new kind of Batman experience, to take the 'Be the Batman' experience to an even deeper level on this exciting new platform, was too good to resist."

It was Rocksteady's first game built in Unreal Engine 4; the studio's earlier Arkham trilogy used a heavily modified Unreal Engine 3. In comments to Gamasutra reported by MCV, co-founder Sefton Hill said the studio used the VR project to make the transition to Unreal Engine 4, and that the series' free-flowing combat and predator gameplay did not translate directly to VR, where players have a limited amount of space to move around in.

Rocksteady hid a teaser for the game in a January 2016 downloadable challenge map for Batman: Arkham Knight. Playing the piano in Wayne Manor opened a wall panel covered in notes that referred to a murder, the Penguin, shrapnel and bodies in a morgue. According to Kotaku, players did not connect the wall to Arkham VR until the VR game came out nine months later.

PC version

The PC version was announced on 3 April 2017, with a release date of 25 April. It supports Oculus Touch and HTC Vive controllers as well as gamepads, including the DualShock 4, the Xbox One controller and the Steam Controller. Announcing the port, Rocksteady creative director Sefton Hill said: "We're thrilled that PC players can finally wear the cowl for themselves and take on the role of the World's Greatest Detective". The game launched on 25 April 2017 on SteamVR, supporting both headsets, and on Oculus Home for the Rift. Steam lists nine supported languages, with full audio in English only.

Release

Platform	Headsets	Release date	Store
PlayStation 4	PlayStation VR	13 October 2016	PlayStation Store
Windows	HTC Vive, Oculus Rift	25 April 2017	Steam (SteamVR)
Windows	Oculus Rift	25 April 2017	Oculus Home

UploadVR and Road to VR give 13 October 2016, the PlayStation VR launch date, as the PlayStation release date, while Metacritic lists 11 October 2016. UploadVR gave a price of US$19.99 on both PlayStation VR and PC. As of September 2026 the Steam version is still sold at US$19.99. The ESRB rates the game M (Mature) for blood and violence. PlayStation's product page says the game can be played on PlayStation 5, although some features available on PS4 may be absent.

Reception

Aggregator or outlet	Platform	Score
Metacritic	PlayStation 4	74/100 (62 critic reviews)
OpenCritic	All	74 top critic average, 55% of critics recommend (53 reviews)
Road to VR	PlayStation VR	8/10
Game Informer	PlayStation VR	7.5/10

Reviewers generally liked the sense of being Batman but faulted the game's length and limited interactivity. Game Informer wrote that "it brings you directly into his suit" and called the game "a nice treat for Batman fans", though it said the game "smacks of a proof-of-concept demo for VR". Road to VR praised its "highly detailed and immersive environments" and object interactions, but said it "plays like a long demo" and criticized the node-to-node teleporting and tracking problems when turning away from the camera. Kotaku's Stephen Totilo described it as "only vaguely interactive" and concluded: "It's a start at best. It's not a destination." UploadVR called it "a beautiful, immersive, and downright believable simulation of what it feels like to wear the suit", but also "little more than a tech demo".

When the PC version launched, Road to VR reported a 79% positive user rating on Steam and 4.25 out of 5 stars on Oculus Home, with buyers often unhappy with the ratio of length to price. By September 2026, Steam showed a "Mixed" user rating based on 2,525 reviews. When Road to VR reported the reveal of Batman: Arkham Shadow in 2024, it described Arkham VR as a PSVR action-puzzle game with about an hour of gameplay.

Sales

In Europe, Batman: Arkham VR was the best-selling PS VR game on the PlayStation Store in 2017. Road to VR reported at the PC launch that the game had placed consistently in the top 10 most downloaded PS VR titles.

Awards

Year	Award	Category	Result
2016	Game Critics Awards	Best VR Game	Won
2016	NAVGTR Awards	Direction in Virtual Reality	Won
2016	PlayStation.Blog Game of the Year	Best PlayStation VR Game	Won (Platinum)
2017	British Academy Games Awards	British Game	Nominated
2017	British Academy Games Awards	Game Innovation	Nominated

Features

• Single-player
• Steam Achievements
• Full controller support
• Steam Trading Cards

System Requirements

Windows

Minimum

• OS: 64-bit Windows™ 7 SP1, Windows™ 8.1 or later, or Windows™ 10
• Processor: Intel™ Core™ i5-4590 equivalent or greater
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce™ GTX 1060 / GTX 970 or AMD Radeon™ RX 480
• DirectX: Version 11
• Storage: 10 GB available space
• VR Support: SteamVR or Oculus PC