EVERYTHING you NEED to KNOW about Batman Arkham Shadow

hello everybody and welcome back as always I am mat 311 and this is your channel for everything VR related so right now everyone is getting pretty hyped for Batman Arkham Asylum and if you haven't seen it yet I've already posted my first impressions after a 40-minute demo of the game I also mentioned that I got to do a Q&A at camouflage Studios and since so many of you requested to see that I am posting the entire video here now if you happen to see any minor Cuts during this video we're not trying to hide anything we just basically had a few technical issues here and there Furniture was moved around we had to do a mic check at one time we're doing a time check so I kind of just clipped those little tiny moments out but the continuity is still there anything we asked was answered the team was super forthcoming and I hope you guys enjoy this it's not my normal content so make sure to you know throw a thumbs up uh any feedback if you want to see more of these whatever the case may be please let me know and let's not waste any more time and just get right into this yeah so I'm Ryan pton I'm the DOR dor of Arkham Shadow and the studio head of camouflage yeah I'm Ryan Darcy the design director on Arkham Shadow I'm Aaron Whitey and I'm the head of production here at camouflage and on Arkham Shadow it's a good softball question you want to you want to do intros I I guess I'm J brat VR YouTuber and if you're here you probably already know who I am uh I'm Jeff uh wolf in VR thanks Rachel or otter worldly Mato 311 you want you want your sof question yeah I'll start it with a started with a nice little softball uh so you guys made Iron Man VR a very well-respected and entertaining superhero game what lessons from that can you immediately apply to Batman well it's in a lot of ways Batman Arkham Shadow couldn't be more different than our previous title uh Iron Man VR uh we we're we're on the ground uh I think it's a lot more of a of like of a thoughtful methodical experience um that's you know uh melee combat focused uh investigations uh different Locomotion um set with with the the grapple and and giving players uh the the freedom to to to roam around Gotham City with with a a very different set of tools at their tool at their disposal so in a lot of ways uh We've we've had to kind of just start from scratch uh from from a VR perspective but thankfully we we have the the existing Arkham titles to look at for inspiration that was always been our North Star uh whenever we got in trouble so but in terms of like things that we've we've learned from uh our previous title that we brought along I think one is the this the importance of having that full body Avatar allowing players to see uh The Gauntlet and uh you your chest plate and and all the way down to your legs uh with with Batman um I think the importance of that and uh in a lot of our learning lessons I think when it comes to like rocket punch and and the way that like the phonetic nature of Iron Man worked and some of those those lessons that were uh applied to our combat in in Arkham Shadow and do you want to add on top of that R Dary yeah so the the the whole seed for the the combat in Arkham Shadow was was planted in in Iron Man I guess I should look this way hi yeah uh yeah and uh you know if you've played Iron Man uh we have a rocket punch there which kind of sends you flying across uh you know the city you know and then you can chain that um three times and and and hit a few enemies um and just that just that uh action in Iron Man felt so good and uh I always imagined you know uh on Iron Man 2 flushing that out some more and adding a little bit more kind of visr like up close combat and Iron Man uh and and then when we got the opportunity to to the potential opportunity to work on Arkham um and Payton was telling me about it you know he he was super excited about the potential of working with that IP we're both huge Batman fans and Arkham fans and and so so were many on the team and uh but you know pton was like oh I don't know if we're going to be able to do the combat in VR uh and I said dude it's it's no problem like you know P's like well how are we going to get Batman like you know In the Heat of combat you're just going to like walk over there and you know hit the analog stick and I was like dude Batman doesn't walk across the room he punches across the room and so making sure that we were baking The Locomotion into the combat was super important um and there's some of that in in Iron Man with the ground pound as well um and then and then from there you know it goes into the the kind of you know stealing some of the time dilation from super hot in order to um orchestrate combos that are BAS Bas on beat saber uh you know we we pulled from um you know our personal experience with Iron Man and the other like high-profile um VR titles that seem to just fit um for for the Arkham combat experience so anyway it took a bit of a tangent there but yeah oh the one thing I could say about the original question as well like um you know what did we learn uh about you know working on Iron Man what do we bring to Batman I think you know other than the rocket punch from a mechanical standpoint um just leaning into the IP when you have a problem and saying how does Iron Man solve this in the comic books or in the films right and um it it it's twofold it it stays true to the IP and then it also um you know players come in with an expectation of things working a certain way because they know the superhero and so if you're able to just lean into the IP the way that Iron Man flies or shoots um you know it just works really well and for us you know there are many versions of Batman but we're explicitly an Arkham title and so looking at how the Arkham games did it uh you know leaning into the IP the first thing you know I always say when the team would ask how do we do X or Y it's like what are the previous AR games do and if we can do it the exact same way in VR do it that way if we need to deviate because VR then that's where like our creative freedom came in and um you know where I think we landed something that is like only possible on the quest 3 so yeah question sure so on that notion of the Arkham series like based on what you guys told us and what I saw in practice this is very much inspired by Arkam Asylum how's it looking also in terms of like scope compared to a game like that I know notice there's a level system so you're going to level up it very much felt like Arkham Asylum in VR but I'm wondering on scale boss fight boss fight stuff like that yeah in terms of the the scope and scale of the game I think Arkham Asylum is our our the closest equivalent we have within the franchise uh and that's pretty intentional on our part uh we yeah from in terms of game length we're looking at something that's close to Arkham Asylum definitely longer than Iron Man VR maybe not as long as Asylum but we're going to be somewhere in that kind of sweet spot we think uh and you probably notice when you when you when you play the game but yeah we're pulling a lot of elements from Asylum but also from the other Arkham titles as well uh we're uh timeline wise we're a direct followup to Arkham Origins so we're pulling a lot of elements from Arkham Origins but I mean there are features that only appear in city and night that we pulled into our game where we felt was appropriate um but unlike the unlike City and night though we're not fully open World um yeah we're I think more of a kind of a focused game um but one thing that yeah I was I was uh I'm excited for for you once you get deeper into the when you have the opport to play the full game and and and and get your impressions on is is seeing the game open up beyond what you played today um because yeah the opening is very intentionally quite linear in terms of like you know getting getting giving players an opportunity to learn the core mechanics before we start opening up to more of Gotham City and then about an hour or two beyond what you played that's when we we we bring the the player to our Arkham Asylum Courtyard inspired space in which all the games dungeons are are are connected and that's where players are going to go through through a multi-hour dungeon unlock a gadget use that Gadget to go back to a previous dungeon unlock new areas there that's where I think the game starts to really open up and feel like a like a true Arkham Asylum uh inspired sequel yeah and gadgets is just what I wanted to add to are we expecting to see like just stuff we've previously seen is this game going to introduce some new gadgets we've kind of never really seen in the Arkham Series so for for for Arkham Shadow I think uh we where we started was where Ryan Darcy was kind of talking about previously is we would look to to Arkham and and try to translate the the mechanics that felt good for VR so we we kind of that's where we started with so grapple gun uh smoke bombs uh batarang but as you you might have noticed in our Gameplay trailer we're starting to kind of unravel or un reveal more more more gadgets including uh the backat claw uh which you can use uh to pull vents off of off of walls but also in combat and pull guys towards you and then clothesline them in in in a nice time dilation fashion it's really cool uh we showed off for the first time shock gloves which is a fan favorite from Arkham Origins and so that feels really terrific and different in VR than how it plays in in in Origins um and we also have our our gel launcher uh which is was I think custom designed to work uh specifically in in leaning to the strengths of VR so as for like U and we have other gadgets that we haven't announced yet but as far as like a brand new Gadget that nobody's ever seen from the Arkham franchise that really actually wasn't our approach our approach was a take I think the gadgets we felt were going to be most appropriate for for VR for our game and then give give the players the fantasy of being able to use those in VR I feel like everything you actually show us very much the game at all yeah I mean the game has a lot of content you know uh it's not it's not as asgard's wrath 2 level of uh you know breath uh but uh it's uh it's definitely jam-packed with so much love and features and big story moments too that I wish you all could have played and seen today but uh yeah that's that's one thing that in addition to the combat that we're so proud of is this pretty hard-hitting story where we're putting Batman that we're putting Batman and the players through there's been a lot of controversy about these big new IPS only going to Quest 3 was it a tough discussion deciding to have to skip the Quest 2 yeah for for us uh we we've had this vision for for Arkham Shadow for a number of years and uh we knew that we definitely needed the power of the quest three to to not only deliver the the size of the world that we wanted to create but also to deliver at the Fidelity of the assets that you got to see today with all the atmospherics and the realtime Shadows uh it was just like that kind of Full Experience like our our our complete vision for the game that we felt like that was going to be true to the franchise that millions of Arkham fans love if if we're going to stay true to that it actually wasn't that hard of a decision even though we know there's a lot of Quest 2 uh users out there uh that would love the game to be for Quest 2 we didn't feel like we we we should compromise the game's vision uh in order to to hit that that that older Hardware so um yeah we've been all in on Quest 3 for a while now um and I think it's our jobs to through this Gameplay trailer and through eventual reviews and everything is to show the world why uh this game is worth buying a quest 34 uh that's really like I think yeah the burden that we have and work on the quest 3s that's coming out before the game launches right I don't even know what you're talking about nice sh uh yeah just to add on to that a little bit um you know like one of the things that you know working on the quest 3 allows this is to not have to lean on reprojection in order hit to hit this visual Fidelity as well right we experimented with that and the game just felt so different um you know you're sampling far fewer frames for all the gesture recognition and and you started dropping punches and drop en counters and it was just like we we can't do this it's not going to feel as responsive as we need it to be if we're going to be utilizing reprojection so you know straight 72 frames um you know we we we we had to do it on Quest three so I know a lot of people in including myself often have issues with motion sickness when playing VR but I didn't experience that at all during this demo so like what measures did you take to prevent that you take that yeah I could take that one um it's great to hear first of all I mean that that's always the concern especially when you've got a really Dynamic game like like Arkham where you're kind of bouncing all over the place grappling gliding right um that's first people that's a lot of first people's qu am I going to be sick if I play this right am I going to be uncomfortable um and you know I think um we the comment you had we also got a lot in Iron Man as well it's like wow like how do I like why am I not feeling ill like what's going on here what are you guys doing you know there's the simple things like you know maintaining High frame rate you know never rotating the player's camera outside of them rotating their own head um there's like very basic things that like will cause players to get ill no camera shakes stuff like that right but once you get Beyond those Basics like and you know I don't have any like signs to back this up but my feeling is the the more strongly you can create a connection between what the player thinks they want to do and then the gesture that they do and then the game reacting in a way that they expect like if you have that connection from your mind body to the game and everything kind of works the way you like it your brain like is comfortable and you don't start getting overloaded and frustrated and I think that adds to the comfort and um because I know I I've played VR titles that there's not a lot of movement but like you know it's just not it's not it's not reacting the way I expect it to and I start getting frustrated and I feel like I need to get out of the headset so that that's my theory but I I don't really know yeah come yeah I think I think for us too with with coming out Iron Man one of our learning lessons was just putting Comfort like first and foremost with all the decisions and Designs we were making and was something we were thinking about very very early on in in development and with VR games sometimes that can be something that comes a lot you know later after you've kind of built out the the combat and the Prototype or your gameplay um but I know for us even very very early on it was like hey let's make sure things are performant let's make sure it's comfortable let's make sure it's smooth and make sure it feels good for our players even at the Prototype level I think that's gone a long way to really reinforce a lot of what we're doing it's always been something that's been just like top of mind for us throughout all of all of development uh you guys mentioned the High Fidelity assets and everything that kind of makes you feel like you are in an Arkham game which I thought you nailed I thought you felt like you stepped right into an actual Arkham game uh my question for you is we spent a lot of time in the sewers in this demo and you know you're dealing with the King and I feel like you're going to spend a lot of time in sewers but is there a good variety of locations uh I don't want to be going through the same tunnel for 9 hours or however long you know I liked when we walked into a bank we walked into the actual City so all this stuff so is there going to be a varied am I going to feel like I'm I'm exploring all these cool places yeah I think you got to see a little bit of a a tease of of what to expect from the Gameplay trailer a pretty wide variety of of locations uh including uh I think Eagle Eye uh Arkham fans will probably notice locals from Arkham Origins including Blackgate Prison uh so uh some outdoor environments uh yeah for us it's been really top of mind to give the players uh a a wide variety of environments to go through uh this the sewers environment that you went through early on the game uh is uh I can confirm uh exclusively today that uh that's the only sewers environment you're going to be going through in the game so it's uh you know the art team did a great job with that and it's like hey we go through it you see the rra barracks you get the sense of like these people that are living under underneath the surface of of Gotham they're rising up and taking to the streets and then that's it and and we're moving on to a different biome and we're do and so yeah it's really important for us that the players feel like they're going on an adventure on a journey uh and that we're flexing the muscles of this incredible team that we have and so yeah you're going to see a very a wide variety of environments and yeah I also want to use this opportunity to talk about uh the dungeons which I think is a really key part of the game I just you mentioned that word earlier dungeons which sounds much more High fantasy than it does like Batman kind of grounded like sword and shield type stuff what are dungeons yeah sorry it's maybe maybe it's more of like Dev Dev speak than I realized at the time but um like when you when you think back to some of your some of at least some of my favorite areas of within the Arkham franchise such as like the uh the the the museum environment from Arkham City where that kind of penguin resides there was a lot of uh kind of Zelda inspired level design that I've that we we've picked up on from The Rock City Games in particular um where you enter a space uh you've got uh some obvious blockers and you are moving through a a big environment but that's contained um in which you know Midway through you unlock a gadget and then you can use that Gadget to then go and explore further and you've got a big boss fight at the end and we have a number of those kinds what we call dungeons throughout the gamees uh throughout the game that is I think where the game really starts to breathe and it feels like a true Arkham game um it's some of my favorite moments in the game and that those have taken literally years of of of iteration um working with uh with our colleague Bill Green who um who who we brought him over from uh he she shipped all the games over at Rock City all the Arkham games um and then he left uh after uh being a lead on Arkham VR and joined camouflage uh but before he joined camouflage he had questions for us like how the heck are you guys doing Arkham combat and VR and uh and when we had him play he was like okay you guys figured out I want to join the team and it's just been an absolute education uh working with him learning what it what rock city like the Rock City way in terms of how grapple points work how sights of lines work um and it only unlocked about a year year and a half ago uh for both bill and I as we're working on these dungeons as we're iterating on the game world uh the importance of flow which has always been a big part of the Arkham games but in VR the magic the trick that we figured out and it took us a while was that we're not going to require the player with some exceptions we're not going to require the player to do 90° turns we're to design the whole level all the levels all the dungeons around 45° turns so only one button click right on the right stick and when you do that it makes everything feel so much more like it just flows so much better uh requires a lot of work uh to kind of make everything like that flow and and feel really good uh but those are kind of like this like the work that's gone into make sure making sure that it feels like an authentic game an authentic Arkham game built for VR so I was curious if during this process there was anything that you wanted to include but just didn't work or you had to cut back or you know performance-wise you know the quest couldn't handle it was there anything you had to cut from this game uh I'm curious what what my colleagues have to say about that but I mean on the on the on the top of my head I mean we've cut a lot of content um and it's not because it wasn't going to run on the quest 3 it was actually us fully embracing uh the Bill Green development method that he he grew up in uh over at Rocksteady uh which is what he calls bold iteration and what that meant was unlike Iron Man where we would build a level and yeah we just kind of would just refine that level for a couple of years uh bill would come in and say hey no we have to rethink the way that we're building these games we're going to make this big dungeon and then we're going to go and we're going to play the whole thing we're going to we're going to uh hook up all the encounters all the designs we're going to play through as a team and then we're going to tear it apart and then we know what we're going to do for the next few months we're going to do it again all the way from scratch and it really forced our team to improve their tools improve their mindset that this is how you build an authentic Arkham game and at first it was very very painful for us um but on the flip side I think we got so used to it that we started just being so willing to throw out content as we're going through that at about a year ago we're like okay we got to stop throwing out content and we got to just take what we have which is really really good and now we've been for the last year or so you know obviously finish up the content now focusing on polish and Bug fixes do you guys want to add anything yeah I'd love to uh as a producer that that process can be a little terrifying no surprise right cuz you I love predictability and and and and all that but you know it was awesome process to see and really yielded results and I was you know a little skeptical at first of like you know how's this going to work and are we going to be able to pull this off and it was really awesome to see that every time we did an iteration we'd you know learn a little bit more as as Ryan alluded to like oh let's you know we got to focus on 45 degree turns not 90 de degree turns um and we see the team just move a little bit faster and a little bit faster You' see those iterations get quicker and quicker and it got it got it was so impressive we were able to in that sewers demo you played through we had some revisions we did earlier this year that we took it from basically a gray box to an all the way arted up VFX uh encounters working in like three weeks which was which was impressive and and um sewers do you think we built oh my God we've we've we've rebuilt that built that so so many times probably at least four or five times at least um but time you can tell like gets a little better gets a little more authentic feels a little bit more Arkham and uh you can tell the team's getting more and more excited and engaged and understands like okay this is how an Arkham game is built so adding on to what you guys were saying you know talking about this new process of how you reiterate uh I think that was very apparent I mean we only played a short demo but it feels like compared to Iron Man which was a great game that I truly enjoyed it feels like your studio has matured like it it it feels like you know we're pushing that AAA quality now in terms of game development and probably one of the biggest thing I noticed is people are always looking for a specific game in VR and it never translates right you guys somehow figured out you know combat and stuff and making you actually feel like you're in the Arkham world so that right there was really impressive no question I just thank you I feel like you guys are itching to talk about combat uh and I think that's going to be people kind of biggest concern with this is you know it's a big chunk of the actual gameplay of the game is throwing punches um and what we played in 45 minutes I I was sweating I don't know about you guys it's a workout it's really fun um but how is that going to vary over the course of a very long game uh I know we had some limited combos that we were throwing we haven't really been able to use tools and stuff so I'm sure it opens up like crazy as you go along but like I know at one point like you're you're pulling people like physically down to bring up your knee and smash him in the face at one point some guy kicked me and I broke his knee with my fist which was incredible but it only happened like once and like I want to see like tons more of that Unique Kind of combat stuff so please open up tell us about the combat yeah I mean you know like the previous Arkham titles uh at the foundation you know the base level strikes encounters right and finding that Rhythm between strike strike strike counter the counters are an attempt to break the players Rhythm and it's a test to make sure that're they're paying attention and it's never about fighting a single enemy as Batman unless it's a boss you know it's about it's that spinning plate gameplay fighting multiple enemies um so after you kind of knock an enemy down do I want to Lunge in for a ground takedown am I safe am I going to get hit when I go to do that or should I take this guy out first right and so that decision point between enemies is really where we start to explore more variety and that's where you're going to want to open up and use you know your Gadget so grab your batter rang throw that stun that guy grab your back claw you know pull weapon out of that guy's hand um you know explosive gel knock these guys down um you know learning to use the gadgets and combat is where I think it really starts to expand um and uh much like the previous titles as well like at a baseline you don't need to master that like that's that's built into the combo system you start getting more XP you start getting more upgrades which all you know then opens up new new takedowns and and new abilities um and so yeah the bosses are the uh the opportunities to push a lot more outside of that core combat as well so the bosses will re require gadgets and you know further further enemies the enemy rot they require new moves so there's capes done in there which you guys could do in in your Dem but you know we didn't tutorial IE it yet CU you didn't need to use it yet but you know yeah our armored enemies are going to require that just like the previous titles you know some enemies are going to require redirect which which is running and jumping up over an enemy and then attacking them from behind uh yeah so yeah knife enemies that require kind of head Dodges um you know so it's again leaning into VR um to um to to do something similar that the Aran games did you would have to hold back on the stick and kind of you know the Batman would Bob and weave but like you're actually bobbing and weaving instead of just holding back on the stick right so really it's it's combination of Gadget usage um you know progression upgrades and then new enemies and bosses that are testing a variety of skills I I'll give it to you guys in a second I'm just so excited about this uh I know kind of it's a very deliberate combat system like hit this specific point come this specific Direction one thing I noticed when I was playing that I got a lot of too fast cuz I felt like I was getting into it I was getting used to it I'm like oh I know what this means now is that always going to stay is there any option to of dial up so you can get used to it and fight a little bit faster yeah the too fast is an interesting one right cuz like wrong location or wrong direction it's like you kind of get it right if it's if it's being a little bit more orchestrated you know taking that beat saer you know strike here in this Direction with this hand like like that's kind of the foundation the too fast is an interesting one and and you know it might just require a little bit more fine-tuning but one of the things okay so you know if if if you were to get in a fight like you're at a bar having a drink and all some dud some dude rolls up and he's like I don't like your face right and your your your your initial instinct is just to kind of go crazy and and and just flail right but like that's not how Batman fights and so the whole idea is we don't this isn't this isn't like a Batman simulation it's it's not a physics-based system it's it's trying to deliver on the fantasy of being Batman so just like in the previous titles you know when Batman's going from enemy to enemy you've got that rhythmic like punch punch punch and so we wanted to recreate that in VR and so if you mash the button in the Arkham games you don't punch every time you mash the button it it only registers on that on that rhythmic hit and if you actually manage to hit it on that rhythmic hit you get crit uh and and so like that that's that's kind of the foundation of the Arkham combat so to to us this was a decision to stay true to the IP um and there are other games out there beding sorcery you know fully simulated physics based system that shit's cool I like that but like that's that's not what Arkham is and that's not what what we're going for um so you know I mean obviously like we can't wait to see what fans think of it and you know whether or not it's it's actually fun you know we think we do you know we've get we've gotten a lot of positive feedback but um it's a slightly different approach something that we hope has a mass appeal as well I mean even in the first combat I never felt like I had to mash buttons or swing my fist like it felt deliberate from the get-go which is great and the Arkham Community you reference is absolutely massive and tons of them are really excited to see another Arkham title being able to get immersed in VR but there is a group that are pretty disappointed they're not going to be able to play it another way what would you say to those people in terms of being able to play it in on another VR platform or people who don't have VR that are disliking the trailer stuff like that yeah I I'm I'm sympathetic to to Arkham fans who have been waiting since 2016 for a new Arkham game and uh and and Arkham Shadow may not be on the platform that they wanted to come out on and hey I want more Arkham titles as well so I'm kind of with them like I'll be in line for the next Arkham game on a PlayStation 5 or an Xbox or a PC uh along with them but for us uh when we when we got the call to to work on Arkham Shadow uh we knew that this was going to be uh a quri exclusive game uh and our our mission is very clear with as a first-party studio within meta which is we our jobs are to create the very best games uh for the platform that show off the the hardware that the the visuals the audio uh to create like Unforgettable experiences that really Leverage The the power the unique power of VR um and and to Leverage just incredible IP that we have so what we actually look as just an incredible opportunity um for to to bring hopefully a lot more people into uh the world of of of of quest and and and the ecosystem so they hopefully buy the hardware to play the game and the good thing about uh the quest ecosystem now in 2024 is that once they're done playing Arkham Shadow they've got so much other content to celebrate and play uh which is something that I think uh you know we we just don't talk enough about like the celebrating all the dozens and dozens and dozens of terrific titles in the in the hardware as well so um I actually uh have I'm I'm really proud of the game that we're making and I'm also really excited to get bring more people into the ecosystem because I think there's so much more to celebrate these days I think if any of those people go demo this they're going to buy a quest 3 on the spot getting in that Universe just felt so good yeah it did feel right and natural but uh what I wanted to ask about was um just replayability so you're going to play through the single player game you know we're probably going to love it enjoy it maybe it's 8 hours 10 hours um but then how many times you going to replay it are you any anything like challenges that we've seen in the aam series that you could just go in try and take down as many guys as possible like any scenario like that yeah we we've internally we have like things that kind of replicate uh challenge Maps uh where we're kind of competing for high scores and um and and we we love doing stuff like that too whether or not that's going to make it uh to the into the ship product is something that we're actually actively focusing on right now um but uh all of the all of our attention right now with the exception of kind of investigating those kinds of things is making sure that the the main campaign is as good as possible from start to finish so in terms of replayability I think you can expect to have as much replayability as the other Arkham titles which I am surprised I guess I'm not maybe not surprised now because I've been living in this world for many years but uh when I started working on this game I was surprised to the degree at which people are still playing the Arkham games after how many years and and now that I'm so just like deep in it all I get it now too so we're just trying to build our game to be uh so we want 8 years from now 10 years from now 15 years from now people are still playing Arkham Shadow and finding new things uh and really loving as much as they love the previous Arkham games up until this point uh so when I was playing the demo I was you know exploring every single brick and stuff and you guys definitely have these little secret areas and a ton of Collectibles one of my favorite parts of the Arkham series was the Riddler trophies these just really unique fun puzzles to find nothing that matters in the actual game but stuff that you feel really good about finding uh so I know you have collectibles in the game but how much more is there that like is off the beaten path yes we have lots off the beaten path lots of Collectibles uh yeah we don't have Riddler trophies in our game uh we have these uh we have a wide variety of collectible types but the two that you experience today are the rat idols and the rat radios uh and and those rat radios will be uh I think harder to find and those going be blocked often times behind puzzles we actually removed some of the puzzles uh from the demo for you today just so we didn't have people get stuck on on puzzles but you found no no you didn't find some of like the more hardcore kind of Riddler inspired puzzles that require a batter ring for a switch to go go into DEC division those kinds of things those are uh that's also our big Focus right now in the game and our in the final month of development in addition to uh balancing out all their encounters and everything is like adding a lot of those kind of Riddler Inspire puzzles throughout the game um and then yeah like I said about um a half dozen or other additional collectible types throughout the world cuz I don't think it'd be an Arkham game without many many many things to collect and many puzzles to solve I mean I have so many more hundreds I think the only thing we're really waiting to see like you've delivered the combat we believe in the combat now uh is the storyline yeah you know we didn't get any glimpse of the story line how would you say it Compares in terms to like Iron Man is it a deeper longer story or yeah I think in in terms of story inspiration uh you we obviously like built off of our learnings from from Iron Man VR uh and telling uh I think a real personal story focus on our hero uh and we very much intentionally chose uh this this phase in Batman's career pretty early on his career to to to give him plenty of room to grow uh and I think we're going to we're really challenging who who Batman's all about uh in this game um and we have this wide cast of Incredible characters from the DC Universe that are going to be joining uh uh uh in in the game world including harling quinzel and and Dr crane who becomes scarecrow and and Harve dent and Commissioner Gordon uh we showed off uh during our at Gamescom we showed off uh lockup for the first time one of our big villains in the game um we've uh we have uh Arnold Wesker and and uh and and Woody as a as like a and and rat catcher these kind of Hardcore Arkham uh characters that have never been given like the proper day in the in the in the in the spotlight uh up until now with with Arkham Shadow so lots of great characters but at the heart of it um you know the two things I'm most proud about this game is is the com and is the story we're telling um and we knew we were on to something pretty special when we had these uh incredible actors coming back into uh into the Arkham verse uh through Arkham Shadow such as Troy Baker Roger Craig Smith um and seeing them on the stage uh who are reprising well not necessarily reprising the roles but they're working together again uh for the first time since Arkham Origins right when they when um Troy was playing Joker and Roger was playing Batman obviously and just seeing them get really into the story and seen people on the set who are like part of the crew like crying and being really emotionally impacted by what we're doing um it was uh it was something really special and I think you can tell um like I've been able I've been working on games for almost 20 years now going back to Metal Gear Solid 4 and um there are moments in that project I remember where people would just get really quiet in a good way like they can tell there's something special happening on the stage and we've had a number of those moments on this game where all credit goes to our writing team uh and Warner Brothers in DC for their guidance and and and their trust in us to tell something that is pretty hard-hitting so uh yeah I stand by the story that we're telling I can't wait to see what people say and what they do and how they react to some of these moments in the game do I get to drive the Batmobile no no no vehicles in the game sorry no vehicles in the game uh noic are there any surprises in store that people just aren't going to be expecting obviously reveal anything I won't tell you what the surprises are but it wouldn't be an Arkham game without lots of surprises in fact um yeah it's very different than the opening of Arkham Knight but we took inspiration from Arkham Knight where if you remember uh the first scene in Arkham Knight's pretty surprising you're like what the heck is going on here this is crazy uh and so we have our own kind of take on that with our game so we're we we start everything off with a surprise and then we just try to we just ask the players to hold on for for dear life all the way through the whole campaign and you all started right after the surprise yeah of course I I'll be totally honest when we got here today some of us we hadn't the Gameplay trailer hadn't come out yet we hadn't seen it yet so I was maybe a little on the fence and I think doing the demo you convinced me so thank you for bringing us out here thank you for letting us test it and getting us all sweaty and we have to stay in the office here all day after that but I think it was I think it was really awesome I'm really stoked for it now so thank you oh thank you no it's been a it's it's been our our pleasure and uh you know we've been waiting for this moment for close to four years right having you all come in and and um we we've been building this game in large part uh for for for you specifically and for your community uh we we're just obsessed with VR we're obsessed with Arkham and we're obsessed with making great titles uh and so yeah it's really it means a lot to us that you'd make the Trek out here and play our game and uh and be patient with us because you know what we what we what you played today is still work in progress uh and just trust that we're going to do everything we can over the next you know few months to to make it as good as possible make sure everyone on your team knows make sure everyone on your team knows huge thank you it's it's amazing it's really come along the people we didn't get to meet here today please make sure we'll definitely let them know yeah they've been really curious to know how today goes so we'll definitely let them know thank you awesome see a guy playing over there