Sadly though, despite the earnest efforts of the powers-that-be to successfully marry Doctor Who and video games, there are core challenges that don’t just simply complicate this, but they are directly opposed to a successful Doctor Who video game as far as traditional game design goes. From even the earliest days of the classic Doctor Who series to a more informed and experienced industry, there always seems to be an ongoing struggle to create a believable narrative and protagonist or a general inability to fully capture the two hearts and soul of Doctor Who. Unless something radical comes along to reinvent gaming as it exists today, there just doesn’t seem to be any time or space for Doctor Who to take.
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Previous Doctor Who Games
Since Doctor Who first came to TV screens in 1963, it’s had ample time to dip its toes into the pool of gaming, dating back as early as 1983 with Doctor Who: The First Adventure for the BBC Micro, all the way up to 2021’s foray into VR with Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality, featuring Doctor Who stars Jodie Whittaker and David Tennant voicing their respective Doctors. There have been a variety of different approaches these games have taken, including both genre and platforms, from puzzle-based games on the Nintendo DS to iOS and Android games with match-three. However, most if not all have been fairly underwhelming, receiving mixed reception overall, which leaves behind a disappointing history for Doctor Who games, which is a disservice to a show that revolutionized television back in the 60s.
Doctor Who seems to work best in gaming when it’s not an outright Doctor Who game, though even this has drawn ire over the years. Some Doctor Who cameos and collaborations in other games vary from the briefest Easter eggs such as Weeping Angel statues in The Witcher 3 to more impressive, full-blown adventures with LEGO Dimensions. These are though not true Doctor Who games and are instead games that reference, parody, or feature Doctor Who in them. While tributes to the influence Doctor Who has had on pop culture is certainly appreciated, it still seems disappointing that Doctor Who simply couldn’t join the ranks of other TV titles that successfully made their way into gaming.
Why Doctor Who Won’t Work
Even with a solid history of characters, settings, enemies to explore, and a seemingly infinite realm of possibility to springboard off from, Doctor Who isn’t a good fit for the gaming format. To start, in choosing a protagonist there can only be two choices: either the player is the Doctor or they are the Doctor’s companion. In the show, the Doctor is the all-knowing hero, and their companion is the viewers’ stand-in, which means that realistically the player could never play ‘as’ the Doctor, since players are introduced to games and their stories without knowing the story, mechanics, and more. In order to avoid the players taking a backseat and losing all engagement, they would need to be positioned as the companion. Even then, however, the companion traditionally serves as second fiddle to the Doctor, leaving the player without much agency.
Some previous Doctor Who games try to move past this, but there are still problems beyond this. For instance, by design due to the limitations of game development, most games will provide players with specific level designs that are either linear or open-world, albeit open only so far. However, for Doctor Who, which brings along the TARDIS and its nigh-limitless space and time travel, the player will need to be isolated to specific locations or time zones, fundamentally defeating the main ethos of Doctor Who. Again, some games try to get around this, but the execution is limited as expected.
To go even further, certain game mechanics are out of the question, such as Doctor Who’s staunch avoidance of combat or killing by The Doctor or their companions, the complicating factors of death and regeneration, or even the previous criticisms of past Doctor Who games’ graphic fidelity always hampering the playing experience. There are just so many hurdles standing in the way of a good Doctor Who game that it seems fans will have to settle for a mediocre game at best.
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What Doctor Who Needs To Do
While Doctor Who’s future in gaming appears to be in dire straits at the moment, there are some potential avenues to explore that could help lead it back to calmer waters. As previously mentioned, LEGO Dimensions was an excellent match for Doctor Who, as the current LEGO gaming formula embraces both the camp and humor and balances it with engaging gameplay and respect for the source material. Additionally, not only is LEGO’s family-friendly ethos a perfect fit for Doctor Who, but LEGO is currently on a roll with its gaming franchises venturing out into different IPs. Whether LEGO Doctor Who would prove a worthwhile investment is for LEGO and BBC to decide.
Future Doctor Who games do appear to hinge on the BBC’s decisions when it comes to who gets the license to make a new game. The BBC has never had the best track record when it came to this, but while it hasn’t stopped it from trying, it seems to often favor British studios to develop its games such as Maze Theory which was responsible for Edge of Reality and published The Lonely Assassins. In order for a Doctor Who game to succeed, perhaps the BBC needs to entrust its IP to another studio with more experience and capacity for reworking unusual properties into games. A well-established studio like Telltale could take over Doctor Who, though whether the BBC looks into this potential is another matter entirely.
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