What the Bat replaces your arms and hands with a pair of baseball bats, and has you swinging through a series of short but sweet levels in an attempt to live a normal life. It’s madness, but works wonderfully. This PSVR2 curio makes solid use of the hardware to deliver one of its silliest yet most appealing launch games.
Playing is so intuitive; all you need to do is move your arms, often taking a swing at whatever object happens to be near you. With not a single button press required, and practically flawless tracking on the PSVR2 Sense Controllers, the game is perfect for VR beginners. We did run into one or two collision issues, but resetting by holding down Options quickly fixed that.
The levels are micro-challenges or puzzles, and there are many of them within each theme. You’ll start off just smacking baseballs at trophies (often the target of each level), but will then progress through a pseudo-life story. As a child, you’ll put shapes into matching slots and fire bananas at toast, and as you grow up, you’ll learn to brush your teeth and do the laundry with your bat appendages. With an elephant companion always nearby, it’s surreal at times but consistently amusing. The haptic feedback makes interacting with the world feel great, too.
Each stage offers up some new idea or gameplay mechanic, keeping the game fresh throughout its short runtime. It’s not just hitting things into the distance — you’ll go bowling, play fetch with your dog, light a campfire, work at a supermarket, visit a museum, and much more. These bite-sized levels keep the novelty going, as you’re compelled to find out where the heck the game will take you next.
You will need some space to play; the game requires a roomscale environment, owing to all the arm-swinging. You won’t need to move from your standing position, so the requirement feels a touch restrictive. Still, if you’re able to meet the necessary floorspace, What the Bat is a very silly but entertaining PSVR2 title. While short, the good news is that more content is on the way, so there’s even more madness to enjoy beyond launch.
