
The release of “Batman: Arkham Shadow” is finally here. Although the game was first announced to the public this past May, the team at Unlock Audio has secretly and eagerly anticipated this milestone for a couple of years — ever since our sound design collaboration with developer Camouflaj began.
Arkham Shadow isn’t the first VR entry in the beloved “Batman: Arkham” series, yet so much has improved with VR in the past 8 years that the latest generation of tech provides a an exciting opportunity for gamers to don Batman’s dark cowl via the Meta Quest 3 and truly “Become the Knight.”
Immersion was the primary goal of our sound design, from enveloping players in the grander sounds of Gotham to infusing a rewarding level of depth and detail in more intimate settings, all while reflecting the signature sounds of the Arkham series throughout the core gameplay.
A City in Dynamic Chaos
From your roost upon Gotham’s rooftops, in the role of the Caped Crusader, you’ll begin to notice significant shifts in the vibe of the city through sound cues alone. While Gotham is never truly “calm,” you’ll know when things are at a normal baseline through typical sounds of a gritty urban environment: the hum of idling trucks, the occasional siren in the distance, the backfire of an engine, etc. Â
As your story unfolds and tensions in the seedy underbelly of the city inevitably grow, so too will the level of chaos or threat you sense around the dark corners and along the alleyways you’ll prowl. After all, what would a visit to Gotham be without an explosive citywide uprising alongside Batman’s meticulous investigations? You’ll know chaos is at its peak when the city is filled with sounds of emergency vehicles screaming, infernos raging, and security alarms ringing just blocks away.
In all, we approached the design of ambient city noise with four degrees of audible chaos to transport players fully into the ever-evolving and always-grinding, grimy world of Gotham.
A Story Behind Every Door
One of my favorite groups of sounds to design was for more intimate settings, like the hallways of the crowded apartment blocks that players will investigate as Batman. Gotham is a populated place, and we knew environments like housing complexes should feel like they are teeming with life even if you’re not confronted with multiple NPC character models within the halls. We saw every door Batman passes as an opportunity to stoke realism with lively sounds that bleed past the thin veil of privacy of cheap apartment walls.
As players traverse Gotham’s residential hallways as Bruce Wayne in disguise, a quick tilt of the head toward any door will award eavesdroppers with aural glimpses into the lives of Gothamites, from the sounds of arguing couples and crying babies to someone losing a messy battle with their booze. These little vignettes were an indulgence allowed by our early creative involvement, which gave us time and space to chase a heightened spatial realism as a base for the signature Arkham gameplay players expect.
Rigorous Realism
The realism we pursued in Arkham Shadow’s sounds extends to the treatments of many interactables and destroyables that players will encounter throughout the game. On smaller scale productions, sound design often leans into brash and cartoonish sound effects to get a point across, but our early involvement in this AAA development cycle granted us the luxury to fine-tune more gritty and realistic effects.
Arkham Shadow is host to some of my favorite sounds I’ve ever created, largely because this game challenged me to approach my sound design in new and unusual ways. These aren’t just the sounds of glass shattering and wooden crates disintegrating — they’re shatters and splinters as only Gotham could create.
Our drive for immersion meant not only getting textural sounds just right, but also tooling how these sounds uniquely reflect Gotham when interacted with. For various objects that can get thrown, I had to get both the material sound just right as well as the sound of how that material expresses motion when mid Gotham air. Some sounds took over a week of toying with resonance and collisions using tools like Corpus in Ableton, which allowed me to imbue the audio with physical modeling characteristics — yet the ultimate satisfaction made every minute of those battles well spent.
Reflecting “Arkham” at its Core
It’s a super daunting task to step into a franchise as storied as “Batman: Arkham.” Every creative decision rides on meeting the high expectations of players of the core games and doing justice to the legacy of Batman overall. After all, one hopes gamers will come to see Arkham Shadow as more than just an offshoot, but as a core entry in the game series.
As a sound designer, it’s easy to get caught up in the idea of putting your own stamp on a new game through reinvention, but there’s an incredible challenge and reward in preserving what people already know and love about what’s come before.
As a lifelong fan, it was easy to set aside selfish ambitions and focus on honoring the fundamental aspects of Arkham and Batman’s signature sounds because the franchise has long left its stamp on me, and I hope other fans sense the immense respect behind our gritty, grimy Gotham sound design.
Return to Gotham and answer the Bat-Signal’s call in “Batman: Arkham Shadow,” only on Meta Quest 3.