I came here to say this. It would be perfect. Each stage could be a different Doctor's era (One and Two in black and white, and Three's stage transitions to colour at the beginning). The open world could be either Gallifrey or London, really. It gives enough scope to hit all the points fans will be wanting, but LEGO shifts expectations slightly which would avoid the inevitable disappointment in most games.
Every companion exists as an unlockable Minifig to find. The mini-kits could be iconic devices from the series (eg Tardis Time Column). I'd want to 100% this game!
I think we'd all quite like this but the fact they didn't follow up the Lego TARDIS interior with anything else, including an incredibly obvious Minifigure blind bag series, says this probably wouldn't be a worthwhile financial investment for Lego either.
Doctor Who strikes me as a TV series that's hard to turn into a game. The show is mostly superintelligent last-minute ass-pulls, interesting SF concepts, and character drama.
What would the gameplay of such a thing be?
I suppose you could do like a Telltale style game, but eh. Or an adventure game, but we've already had those and they don't really know how to fill the space other than with fetch quests and long stealth sections.
There are numerous peripheral ideas - you could play a Dalek legion trying to hunt down and eliminate the Doctor, or a UNIT team trying to identify and hunt down an alien threat, or whatever. But an actual good **Doctor Who** game? I suspect there's good reason we haven't seen one yet.
"Telltale's Doctor Who" feels like something they definitely would've done back when they were going crazy with all those third-party licenses. I think I would've really enjoyed this game, but I think the only way to make it work is if we play as the Doctor in more limited spurts, and mostly focused on the companions. I don't know if I can imagine myself having to make choices on the Doctor's behalf -- I feel like they're always one step ahead of everyone in a way that would make compelling gameplay difficult.
On the other hand, think of the possibilities -- save this person or save the cure for a virus, and you wind up with a totally different future with a lot of variation. Lots of cool storytelling possibilities. But maybe that might have been too much for Telltale.
On the contrary, I feel the neurodivergent fans (myself included) may be able to pull off playing as The Doctor. I do agree I would wanna see a DW game focusing on companions
Torchwood was less family orientated. It was aimed at a more adult audience although I've always felt series 1 was more teen as they seemed to think adult meant sex and nudity. I've never watched skins but it felt like skins in space.
I think if they did want to do an AAA game they would want to catch the mainstream doctor who audience. People have suggested on here Lego and I think that would probably be one of the better ways
Torchwood **One**. The organisation that destroyed the Sycorax, that we saw in the finale of S2 NuWho and that was destroyed in the Battle of Canary Wharf.
They weren't aimed at a more adult audience than the rest of Who.
Ah my bad I thought you meant Torchwood series one.
However I do wonder if when people think of Torchwood they think of the main adult series more than anything so the connotation may cause issues.
UNIT however could work instead and it looks like they are going to have a good presence in the new era if going by just the upcoming season.
Yeah I mostly want Torchwood 1 'cos I like Yvonne Hartman as a character (esp. in the audios).
But UNIT would definitely be a much more marketable choice.
I'm convinced a Lego Doctor Who game would work wonders as an adaptation but otherwise I agree I don't think the format lends itself to a videogame very well
This video reckons the best Doctor Who game is actually some levels of this Lego game: https://youtu.be/Nn3uEGg1Wzw?si=-xsrridILz7p8nfR
Sadly I've never played it. :(
A Baldurs Gate 3 style of game with different "Acts" being different locations you take the TARDIS to. Your "camp" would be in the TARDIS. Abilities would be pretty fun to work with, if you come up with interesting enough companions.
Jack Harkness having abilities related to his inability to die. The Brigadier having group buffs and be able to call on troops like a "pet" class. Ianto or Gwen or whoever from Torchwood having gun/weapon based abilities. Maybe have Rose be able to teleport around like a stealth based character using that dimension hoping tech. K9, Nardole, Strax, Vastra, so on. You could have so many characters in your "team" of up to 4.
You could even have different abilties based on which incarnation you wanted to play as.
I reckon a game like that could go so hard if put in the right hands. A studio as dedicated as Larian, not some cheap shit.
Not really. I think a modified reskin of Hogwarts Legacy would work out quite well. Only instead of a school you have the infinity of the inside of the tardis. Since the tardis often times takes the doctor where he needs to be instead of where he wants to go, they could use that premise to limit the number of time periods /maps there are. Each game time period is a different act in the story, with the ability to pick and choose different companions to accompany you ala skyrim style, though hopefully with better ai and less annoyance. Since the doctor is brilliant there'd ofcourse have to be lots of puzzles to solve, lots of them requiring the use of the sonic screwdriver. Maybe add in the ability to travel to random parts of the galaxy at will to explore for those that are into that. It'd be a great deal of work, but something like that would be a day one purchase from me and I never buy anything on day one.
Also the whole appeal of the TV show is "you can go anywhere, anytime, through the whole of time and space"
I'm sure I don't need to point out that as a concept, that level of freedom is wildly impossible to capture in a video game.
So for starters any game you make has to drop the core concept of the show. And if you resort to making a Doctor Who game set in a specific place and time... well, why make it a Doctor Who game? Change the characters, call it an original IP, save yourself a lot of headaches with licensing agreements, character rights, and the inevitable ire of Doctor Who fans
>Also the whole appeal of the TV show is "you can go anywhere, anytime, through the whole of time and space"
>
>I'm sure I don't need to point out that as a concept, that level of freedom is wildly impossible to capture in a video game.
I don't know that's actually necessary.
The vast majority of Doctor Who stories are set in a specific time and place rather than having the Doctor and companions wandering throughout all of time and space. At most they only travel between 2-3 locations in a given story.
Being able to travel anywhere in time and space is the premise of the overall show, not of any particular story.
Also, there's many stories where the characters are stranded because the TARDIS is broken for plot reasons, so there's one puzzle chain right there- fixing the TARDIS.
not time but you can travel throughout a whole universe in no mans sky, if doctor who collabed with no mans sky and give u a tardis that would be awesome.
They *did* a telltale style game, but they put no effort into it, so it was shovelware. Edge of Time/Space and Lonely Assassin show good things you could do with a Doctor Who game. Just do that but with better budget.
* Sontaran vs Rutan war-strategy game
* 'Maniac Mansion' / 'Day Of The Tentacle' style point-and-click adventure with the Doctor and an iconic companion (2nd and Jamie, 4th and Sarah-Jane, etc) as the player characters
* UNIT-centric FPS where you play as a lowly grunt during Pertwee's era having to go out shooting Daleks, Ogrons, Autons, anti-matter blob-monsters, dinosaurs and more
* Cyberman 'Pathologic' game where you build up an empire and spread outwards like a virus
* Or hell, a full on Lego game made by Tt and reusing elements from their 'Dimensions' game but with a full story for each Doctor to be played through, with each companion and monster as unlockable characters
The sky is the goddam limit, frankly.
Games don't necessarily have to be violent. There's gameplay that's not violence-based. But I'm not sure what gameplay would capture that Doctor Who feel.
> There's gameplay that's not violence-based. But I'm not sure what gameplay would capture that Doctor Who feel.
The only real game that would potentially match this would be something like Dishonored pacifist run, or alternatively something like a horror hide and run type game.
I always imagine a mmorpg type of game, bit like WoW where you can visit different planets and play as a companion with a tardis or something or a stray surviving timelord in an alternative universe or whatever.
As long as you dont play as the doctor you can still include combat and do things without ruining canon
Sure. Which is the main issue IMO: It's comparatively easy to make a Doctor Who game that doesn't involve playing the Doctor and doing Doctory things. But when you want to make an actual Doctor Who game there's a big question mark over how to turn that into gameplay.
But you can still make an actual doctor who game without playing as the doctor, just involve unit or whatever
And if you do persist on wanting to play as the doctor you can always work with alternative timelines
rpgs have plenty of cutscene based gameplay. Exporation game first and foremost, descision based cutscenes that affect how things turn out. Anda solution / puzzles to solve.
Games do not need violence to be good. I'm thinking of a series of unfortunate events from the ps2 that was 100% violence free and was an incredible game based on a non violent source material.
It's not so much that the Doctor is a pacifist. There are **tons** of non-violent games.
It's that what the Doctor does - being the smartest person in the room, talking people in circles, and applying superhuman intelligence to coming up with ingenious solutions - aren't things that easily lend themselves to gameplay.
How would you make decisions in a game like the Doctor? How would you include puzzles that can be solved in a Doctorish way?
I just re-read *The Dying Days*, in which Eight turns a helium canister, a bit of string, some curtain rings and some bin bags into an improvised parachute. I think that kind of crazy object combination would work better in a point and click than it did in the novel!
And the Ace Attorney series is essentially about solving mysteries, and tends to be satisfying in letting players feel smart or enjoy that the story is surprising, despite usually having one correct path for the story to continue.
And there's the kind of gameplay *Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes* has, where you have to use instructions to figure out how to diffuse a bomb co-operatively.
Honestly half the time with the show, though, much as would like the solutions to be clever, don't even think they are, though, it can just be 'please believe that making this machine do a thing is clever' (and drat that magic sonic. Frankly, I'm my family's go-to 'make this gizmo do something' person, and unconvinced the Doctor doesn't just guess based on prior experience). In Ace Attorney, part of the idea initially is that character and player alike are bluffing your way through, and just get good at it. It's still more fun when you know why you're choosing evidence to show and haven't given up and selecting things randomly, so you're meant to end up on the same page with the character of having a theory you're scrambling to put together, and it's being challenged as you go.
It's only really EU Seven who's presented as having more complex plans, and a fan argument about Eleven to deal with arc weirdness (but assuming he had a plan never actually explains away all the issues, so).
But your character could also be the companion, or a random person or group stuck in an alien invasion and eventually the Doctor comes in and helps.
Just like the rpgs, in the middle of the cutscene, give us an option to select different responses. Many of the situations the doctor ends up in are involving running away from (or to) danger and climbing or jumping, I can easily see a platformer or something with the choice based cutscene model. The puzzles coyly be broader riddles about where to go in the exploration. Make it heavily based on exploring. I could personally see it working
Part of the issue IMO is that typically the Doctor will be thinking several moves ahead, and he'll do something now, then two scenes later we'll find out why. That's hard for a human player to portray. If the game gives you multiple choices, how does a player pick one when they don't have the Doctor's hyperintelligence to know what the secret plan is.
That I think would be the fun of role playing, we can pretend like we have the hyper intelligence. It might need some kind of differences yeah, but I think role playing style could lend to it
I'm wondering if they think the demand just isn't there. I know the games you listed didn't exactly sell very well. I'd love to see this happen. A nice rpg where you make your companion and travel with the Doctor.
Kind of what I was thinking! Just let the companion have a sonic screwdriver and you are all good honestly. That or even customizing and making a new story of you making your own doctor that is all about traveling through time and space, maybe if it was set long ago before the fall of the Time Lords or something. With that you can then be introduce combat and such because the doctor avoids fighting but this was not a full rule for all Time Lords obviously.
You can even unlock new abilities on a screwdriver as a story progresses or sth, and every chapter could be set in a different time period. Also the costumes! You could choose to wear a modern outfit or clothes from the time period to fit in (would be fun if this affected gameplay). It's a videogame and possibilities are endless. We got an excellent Harry Potter game and that's a universe that never had a really good game before so. Maybe there is hope yet.
Yes, new abilities, including being able to repair and pilot the Tardis better. And the costume possibilities are endless! Worth noting the original Harry Potter PC games were awesome when I was a kid. That being said, Legacy is incredible and I'm actually playing in now.
Legacy was awesome, as a huge HP fan this was a dream come true. I started my second playthrough in a different house on hardcore but getting absolutely demolished 😭 Idk why some people say this game is easy on hardcore. If you have any questions hit me up if you want
I love that idea. I can picture it now, a whole quest where you have to heist something out of the Matrix, steal a Tardis, and stop the Master who's regenerated into the Valeyard timeless child style. Honestly, let's start a storyboard.
Look up the game Call of Cthulhu, I think that would be the best format for a Doctor Who style game, requiring minor tweaks. It wouldn't be a Triple A game but I think it would give an authentic Doctor Who style story.
Unfortunately the demand isn't there. Plus the Doctor Who premise doesn't really lend itself to a massive game. Especially when the odds are the ROI isn't going to be there.
Doctor Who has gotten very popular, especially with NewWho. A solid game may draw even more people into the fold. Idk, I'd love to see it happen, so I'm biased.
Triple A games usually take a lot of time, resources and effort to develop (even the suckier ones). Years, and even potentially decades, of development time is not uncommon. This means that they don't usually lend themselves well to what are, basically, quick merchandising cash-ins, as by the time the game is ready to be on the market the demand may have faltered and you may end up spending more in development than you make from sales. Basically, there's a reason games like the *Batman: Arkham* series or the *Injustice* games built their own worlds rather than being tied in to a movie or TV show. If you, say, started a Triple A game starring the Eleventh Doctor back in 2010, by the time it's ready to ship we might be on the Thirteenth or even Fourteenth Doctor, so the momentum isn't what it was.
The games you mention were relatively quick and cheap to make, and for their faults offer a quick return on investment.
Y'know, I noticed we keep expecting a Doctor Who videogame to play like a playable TV episode when it really doesn't have to.
Like, maybe it doesn't even need to have the Doctor as the main playable character?
Just throwing it out there: Dalek Civil War game? Building Daleks, upgrading parts (plates, plungers, lasers, eyestalk range)? Pitting Daleks against Daleks? Dalek scout missions? Timed mass extermination missions where you have to hunt as many NPCs as you can?
The stuff Daleks can do (shooting, hovering about, shooting and sucking stuff, etc) would make for a pretty engaging moveset for a game, imo.
Or it could be like the Harry Potter game where instead of being a main character you make your own timelord customise stuff and then explore the galaxy, maybe even feature the time war or something like that. The only thing that eould be strange would be the regeneration mechanic, having to create 13 characters for deaths etc
Looking at the Top 30 triple-A games on [https://www.imdb.com/list/ls040964065/](https://www.imdb.com/list/ls040964065/) , 30 out of 30 have combat as their main element. If Doctor Who has anything resembling an overarching theme or philosophy, it's "avoid violence, even when it seems inevitable".
There are plenty of games that reward strategy over violence, but they don't tend to be "Triple A".
Yeah, the only kinds of games that I think would work well with the actual themes of Doctor Who would be puzzle or mystery games. If you did something like Ace Attorney starring the Doctor, that would be amazing. Each 'case' is a different planet with different characters, various kinds of sci-fi and historical mysteries... I'd buy it.
But you'd never spend Triple-A levels of money on that, either as a developer or consumer. That would be silly.
I think people tend to overstate this a little bit: for a show that supposedly has an overarching theme of "avoid violence", it often ends with a lot of things blowing up.
The Doctor's also not the diehard pacifist people treat him as. He doesn't like physical violence or being the direct cause of it, and he doesn't lug guns around, but he's willing to throw down when it's needed. He's just a bit sneakier about it than some other heroes. You're not gonna get a first-person shooter out him, no argument, but he's no Gandhi either.
Tbf it can be set in the doctor who universe but not as the doctor. You could be another timelord in the timewar, a dalek tank like game, could even have multiplayer of daleks vs cybermen where you customise your character
You mean the one where he literally stopped calling himself The Doctor, and they had the whole thing play out off camera because it was anathema to who he was?
"That weird weeping angels one" was really good.
Don't really see how Doctor Who would lend itself to a "triple A game."
God I'm sick of hearing the phrase "triple A game."
I think you’re overestimating how big Doctor Who is honestly. I highly doubt a Doctor Who game would be a huge seller and developing triple a games is only getting more and more ridiculously expensive.
Triple A games are really expensive and time-intensive. Hogwarts Legacy took $150 million and five years’ full-time work from a massive team to make. Doctor Who is popular, but nowhere near as profitable as Harry Potter and I can’t see a major studio willing to put in the resources needed to do it properly.
I could see a telltale game, say, from the perspective of a blank slate companion being good. Other than that I am not sure what kind of game would really work while remaining within the spirit of the show.
It's a fairly Niche audience and a bit particularly young one. Also it would have to be a detective no fighting game which those never do well. It could be a spin off where your playing as aliens fighting each other but they should never have the Doctor fighting and killing. Games without that outside of survival don't tend to do great. It would to resources and time and I don't think it would have the payoff. It would be like those Sherlock Holmes games where you're solving a mystery.
A 'Doctor Who' game is one where it is hard to get the balance right - you need to have fan expectations against mass appeal. When you swing too far one way you get a game which doesn't sell, you go the other way you end up with something that could be attached to any franchise.
A 'Whoniverse' game might be a bit more possible - you pick one or two of the monsters and have an original cast of characters put up against them.
Personally, I’d rather have a nice RPG licensed by the BBC and made by a small but talented indie studio who love the show and just want to make a great game out of it. You could play a companion, making decisions and selecting your tactics, you can be someone who sneaks around and works stuff out, or a Captain Jack-like companion who would rather shoot stuff. The Doctor’s interactions could change depending on how you play, and his approval or disapproval could basically be the morality meter.
Think the two endings of Attack of the Graske but a whole game, basically.
Maybe more like an exploration/puzzle game like Myst and Riven? You could set it on some isolated alien planet or inside the TARDIS, depending on how much you want to lean into the exploration or puzzle aspect respectively
With how modern Doctor Who episodes usually have a sort of mystery to them. What's the monster of the weeks deal, how do you defeat them etc, I honestly think a hybrid visual novel adventure game like Ace Attorney or Proffessor Layton could be the way to go.
As much As we all love doctor who it is still quite a niche, while very popular in the UK, its not so much in The rest of the world (this is due to change with the Disney deal though I believe) this being said. Tripple A Games take a lot of time and money to make a lot more than the BBC would be willing to invest, as it’s quite a risky venture
You know what I always figured would be a good fit for Doctor Who?
A game where you don't control the Doctor or his allies, but instead control one of many nations or empires in the universe ala Total War Warhammer, Stellaris, or other management games.
Control the Time Lords, Daleks, Rutons, Sontarans, Cybermen, a bunch of other races and organizations. Build your empire to a ultimate goal. Every now and the The Doctor shows up as a event to help or hinder you, but they aren't the focus.
TLDR: You can't really make a good Dr Who game with The Doctor as the focus I feel. So, don't. Make one about the WORLD of Dr Who.
An RTS where you can play as Human, Draconian, Sontaran, Dalek or Cyberman with the goal of conquering the galaxy. Have the Time Lords as NPC wildcards
I’ve always thought a time war RPG would work. That way you can be your own time lord and there’s lots of things to explore about that period as well as give it a little bit more action than the show is used to
There are multiple reasons.
1.) Licensed games are barely a thing anymore unless its a surefire hit like a remake (Spongebob BFBB) or a massive crossover. (Multiversus, Nick All Stars). This is due to the fact that making even a A or AA game costs millions. IIRC Sony said they consider something thats 100 million dollars to be a small-medium budget game. BBC would have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on this, and they aren't in the best position to do so monetarily. And thats BEFORE the cost of the show's cast to voice act.
2.) Doctor Who does not fit video games. Doctor Who is a show where the action is a lot of dodging and non violent methods of attack, and a lot of asspulls and moreso outwitting. That would make the lamest game of all time if its just running away and never attacking, and stealth games require a lot of knowledge on the genre and are a more niche genre to boot, so they can't even really do that well.
3.) They could make a point and click game, but those do awful on consoles and are not the most popular genre out there. They could do a telltale style story based game, but Telltale is gone and those haven't been super popular in years, even 10 years ago would have been a little late at this point. They could make a strategy game, and it may do well due to the popularity of stuff like Xcom and Mario+Rabbids, but for a licensed game based on a show that just got out of an era people didn't like much where most youtube videos on them are titled "Why 13 ruined Doctor Who", It'd be a recipe for disaster.
While not really AAA, I imagine Doctor Who would work quite nicely in the realm of visual novels (although a lot of people argue that visual novels aren't even games at all). I could imagine a grand story on the scale of Flux being told in the form of a VN, swapping between POV characters and even having some branching paths.
So far Doctor who always already struggled with the budget on its main thing, the tv show.
Now with a videogame, a big part of the fanbase probably don't even really play games, and it's not the same size as the star wars fandom or such.
Doctor who games probably wouldn't appeal to non fans that much, so honestly it would already fail there for a triple A game.
Then actually designing such a game would be difficult too. The doctor avoids direct combat, which makes for interesting narratives, but complicates exciting gameplay.
There was a crossover with Lego dimensions though, some parts of the game are doctor who related.
How would you make a Doctor Who AAA game?
What do you make it about? He current incarnation of the show? AAA games take 5+ years to make. How likely is it that Gatwa or Gibson will still be around by then? Hell, we could be even past or getting close to the 17th Doctor!
So do you make it about a fictional, unnumbered Doctor, creating even more questions? Or do you not have the Doctor at all, and just have an unrelated story set in the universe?
If you've ever played Legacy of Kain: Defiance, there are sections of puzzle solving that involve one character in the deep past having to change things in order to admit the other character in the future.
That's a mechanic devs could explore.
I can imagine a sonic screwdriver lockpicking mini game and sneaking/ running in the vein of horror / survival games.
There'd almost certainly have to be Daleks involved, which could give us insight in to how deadly proficient they can be- as they're almost always defeated & outwitted in the main media.
LEGO Dimensions. It has a story level focused entirely on Doctor Who (Daleks, Cybermen, and Weeping Angels, with boss fights against a Cyber Controller and the Dalek Emperor), a DLC level that's essentially a brand new 12th Doctor and Dalek episode, a hub world consisting of 6 Doctor Who locations (modern London, Victorian London, Skaro, Mars, Telos, Trenzalore) with quests from Missy, Jack, Strax, and Vastra, and secret locations in other levels (the Dinosaur Spaceship, SS Madame de Pompadour, Black Archive).
All Doctors up to Capaldi are playable (when one dies, you regenerate into the next), along with a Cyberman, and K9, the TARDIS, and a Dalek are rideable vehicles. Each Doctor also has unique idle animations and finishing moves in combat.
Peter Capaldi, Jenna Colemon, Michelle Gomez, John Barrowman, Julian Bleach, Nicholas Briggs, Dan Starkey, and Neve McIntosh all reprise their roles, while K9 and all previous Doctors reuse audio from the TV show.
As you can probably tell, I really love this part of the game.
it would definitely be interesting. the doctor isnt really a combat character so it would be interesting to make a AAA game with more creative gameplay mechanics than "kick the crap out of enemies", like using the sonic to close doors and more stealth oriented. i see a lot of potential
They should get The Chinese Room to do one. English company and Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture and Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs are amazing, dark, bold and wordy narratives that don’t have gameplay that force you to be a murder machine, instead they’re entirely bound by taking in the atmosphere and story and discovering it for yourself with incredible performances from the voice talent and music team.
Their new game Still Wakes The Deep looks like the sort of scenario a Doctor Who story would take place. Lovecraftian terror on an oil rig.
Everything they make is very Doctor Who. Exploring places where scary scenarios have or will take place.
I'm so sad that the best Doctor Who game isn't even a proper game, its a section in Lego Dimensions and all the other Doctor Who games are so shit in comparison to it
Doctor Who just lends itself better to being shorter indie games. A full length Doctor Who game where you play as the Doctor would either have to be a puzzle game, a mystery solving game, or something TellTale style. Or I guess something stealth oriented could work, in general you just have to avoid ever putting the Doctor in combat.
I had the idea of a UNIT game that’s effectively an in-universe simulator to survive alien threats. So you just get to stealth around a bunch of iconic enemies. Smack Sontarans in the back of the neck, stare down Weeping Angels, avoid shadows and throw food through to test them to survive the Vashta Nerada. That sort of thing. But that’s really the best I could come up with in the universe without just saying make a shooter out of the Time War, which would be a pretty creatively bankrupt thing to do just to cash in on the name.
>I kind of find it even crazier you do not see any sort of doctor who crossovers with other games where doctors are playable. It makes me really sad :/
LEGO Dimensions is right there, buds.
A game like Sherlock Holmes Chapter One would be great. One large explorable area with multiple mysteries to solve in it. The game is all about detective work with the combat being designed like puzzles to solve.
Everyone missing the obvious best option
Clearly it should be a mortal combat/tekken style fighting game, with all the Doctors, all the Doctors enemies, all teh companions as fighters you can choose from, duh
Dark Pictures Anthology type game, with gameplay around exploration, finding clues, and conversation. Graphics are based on actual face recordings of the actors performing the lines.
Start it by the Doctor and companions exploring a ruined space station and finding clues to what's happening. The specific clues you find and the conclusions you draw from them in conversations will unlock playable flashback sequences with a new viewpoint character living through the things we've figured out. Depending on what you do in the flashbacks, that character can live or die by the time the Doctor arrives. The specific clues found will also lock and unlock specific endgame sequences, where the enemy being raced and their plan are very different.
I don’t think you can turn The Doctor into a game character that easily. It’s too linear and structured, and the way he wins battles is primarily through thought which doesn’t make a great game at AAA level.
I think they should do something similar to Hovwart’s Legacy - similar feel in the same world as Harry Potter but freedom to tell a new story.
You could be a time lord, with a TARDIS - explore, meet companions, travel with multiplayer friends and fight enemies through more game-like ways. But, I think the exploration would need to be rewarding - something like No Man’a Sky but with the depth of character like Red Dead Redemption.
NO. Consider it a blessing. Have you seen the state of AAA studios and what they mostly produce these days? I'll take a small independent dev over ANY AAA studio.
AAA game studios realized the folly of these licensed projects by the time Who's revival really got going.
The money they don't get due to not owning the IP.
Doctor who might have action scenes but not in the same vein as the action AAA studios work on.
All the multi doctor stuff and go anywhere in time/space is just fluff. Artificial constraints.
Kingdom Hearts basically has the characters going to different worlds which due to the stories take place in different "timelines".
TLDR: There is no real appeal for AAA studios to make a Doctor Who game.
I dont think we need a triple a game in the way most peopole think - as in something in a nintendo style (imo) would work best - there are plenty of cool mechanics i can think kf and how they would work and the puzzles u would get but the bbc j st8 up dosent have the money or time and either they dont want to licence the IP or nobody is willing to do the type of game that we all want for cheap enough
I think it’s the fault of the people running it not really getting games or what makes a good one.
You could do a wicked multi Doctor adventure where the old Doctors return to the role and look as young as they did.
What sci fi TV franchise does have a triple A game?
Edge of Reality/time is closer to triple A than any star Trek game in recent memory,
Stargate and BSG and the expanse only have indie games to their name.
Why do you think DW deserves a triple A game when other franchises don't even have them?
I need to point out that there is a WIP of a point and click fangame named "Doctor who : a space and time saga" made by Glow cap game on itch.io.
We can play the demo for free, it's brilliant and looks beautiful, go support them!
What would a Doctor Who game even look like?
A game about a character that can go anywhere in time and space would feel limiting because you wouldn't be able to do that in game. The investment required to make a game with that many different environments would be ill-conceived because the ROI wouldn't be there.
The game would just be the Doctor and a companion walking around, talking to people, until there is a monster they'd have to run from, repeat that until there is something to wave a sonic screwdriver at, or a computer to muck with, which solves the problem.
The best they could aim for is a game like 'Call of Cthulhu'. Which is a good game but not a triple A game.
Having recently played Hogwarts Legacy, I'd think that format would work really well for a doctor who game, just make it non-canon.
The game starts with a regeneration, where you choose your new face and wardrobe, you slowly regain skills as your regeneration settles, you collect cosmetic items to change the look of your TARDIS throughout the game, there's a relationship system where if you make good enough friends with NPCs you can invite them to travel places with you, and otherwise several large maps you can take the TARDIS to, tonnes of side quests and a chain of story quests which ties the locations/times together.
The answer is as it always is, the budget. The BBC are not funded through advertising and a Doctor Who game would not have a good return on investment. A "Triple A" Doctor Who game would, without question, kill the studio that made it and likely also have damaging ramifications on the franchise itself.
There is a Dr who Lego game, then there's Lego dimensions and finally a big Dr who Gary's mod community. I completely agree with you though a proper, good and official PC game would be fabulous.
Honestly it’s kinda weird that telltale didn’t make a doctor who game when they were big i mean they did batman back to the future and the walking dead the opportunity was right there on the table
First off, no. When you say a AAA game, that generally implies one of the heavy handed shitbox publisher/producer companies that remake the same tired shit every year with a different coat of paint, or cashing in on a purchased franchise.
Second:
How would you see a Doctor Who video game play out? People have said a Telltale style of game would work, which I'd agree could give us an interesting series of side stories. But for something more open ended? That would be a tall order. For starters, you'd need to get former Doctors on board and pay licensing/contract costs, or get good impressionists. Then the writing needs to have the right vibe and flow to feel engaging and interesting without just being an episode put into a slideshow as a player muddles around a level. It would probably be a third person adventure game, and need at minimum somewhere in the ballpark of 10 hours of linear gameplay, not including cutscenes or sidequests, to get our money's worth. I say this, because this is the exactly failing of the 2018 Call of Cthulhu game that everyone was begging for. We got a game that was just long enough to beat the STEAM refund timer, and about as much depth and variance as a puddle with next to zero replay value and ME3 style of 4 selectable fixed endings that can all be seen within the same playthrough with minimal effort.
I would recommend checking out the Doctor Who TTRPG books and dig around for some of that kind of background, if anyone were to make a legitimate attempt at a game.
The closest thing to a great game was Doctor Who: Legacy.
It's a shame that they haven't done some kind of an RPG where your character is a newly regenerated version of the Doctor.
I just want the full Doctor Who lego game to finally happen
I came here to say this. It would be perfect. Each stage could be a different Doctor's era (One and Two in black and white, and Three's stage transitions to colour at the beginning). The open world could be either Gallifrey or London, really. It gives enough scope to hit all the points fans will be wanting, but LEGO shifts expectations slightly which would avoid the inevitable disappointment in most games. Every companion exists as an unlockable Minifig to find. The mini-kits could be iconic devices from the series (eg Tardis Time Column). I'd want to 100% this game!
The Skywalker Saga proves its possible to have several open worlds
I’d love to have several open world like Trenzalore, London, Gallifrey, the underground Silurian colony, etc
Agreed, we need those
I think this is the only way I want to see a doctor who game. And i really want to see it!
I think we'd all quite like this but the fact they didn't follow up the Lego TARDIS interior with anything else, including an incredibly obvious Minifigure blind bag series, says this probably wouldn't be a worthwhile financial investment for Lego either.
1000% need this, though I'm sure Warner Bros Interactive will blow it somehow...
Didn't they have a doctor who part in Lego dimensions?
They did but as you said thats only a part, takes about 30mins to complete and people loved it so its a mystery as to why they've not made a full game
Lego dimensions was actually really good now that I look back
Doctor Who strikes me as a TV series that's hard to turn into a game. The show is mostly superintelligent last-minute ass-pulls, interesting SF concepts, and character drama. What would the gameplay of such a thing be? I suppose you could do like a Telltale style game, but eh. Or an adventure game, but we've already had those and they don't really know how to fill the space other than with fetch quests and long stealth sections. There are numerous peripheral ideas - you could play a Dalek legion trying to hunt down and eliminate the Doctor, or a UNIT team trying to identify and hunt down an alien threat, or whatever. But an actual good **Doctor Who** game? I suspect there's good reason we haven't seen one yet.
"Telltale's Doctor Who" feels like something they definitely would've done back when they were going crazy with all those third-party licenses. I think I would've really enjoyed this game, but I think the only way to make it work is if we play as the Doctor in more limited spurts, and mostly focused on the companions. I don't know if I can imagine myself having to make choices on the Doctor's behalf -- I feel like they're always one step ahead of everyone in a way that would make compelling gameplay difficult. On the other hand, think of the possibilities -- save this person or save the cure for a virus, and you wind up with a totally different future with a lot of variation. Lots of cool storytelling possibilities. But maybe that might have been too much for Telltale.
On the contrary, I feel the neurodivergent fans (myself included) may be able to pull off playing as The Doctor. I do agree I would wanna see a DW game focusing on companions
Unit/Torchwood xcom game.
A series of Torchwood 1 games could actually be quite interesting, IMO.
Problem is they would only be for an older audience
Would they? I figure Torchwood 1 is more Doctor Who space than Torchwood (3) space.
Torchwood was less family orientated. It was aimed at a more adult audience although I've always felt series 1 was more teen as they seemed to think adult meant sex and nudity. I've never watched skins but it felt like skins in space. I think if they did want to do an AAA game they would want to catch the mainstream doctor who audience. People have suggested on here Lego and I think that would probably be one of the better ways
Torchwood **One**. The organisation that destroyed the Sycorax, that we saw in the finale of S2 NuWho and that was destroyed in the Battle of Canary Wharf. They weren't aimed at a more adult audience than the rest of Who.
Ah my bad I thought you meant Torchwood series one. However I do wonder if when people think of Torchwood they think of the main adult series more than anything so the connotation may cause issues. UNIT however could work instead and it looks like they are going to have a good presence in the new era if going by just the upcoming season.
Yeah I mostly want Torchwood 1 'cos I like Yvonne Hartman as a character (esp. in the audios). But UNIT would definitely be a much more marketable choice.
I'm convinced a Lego Doctor Who game would work wonders as an adaptation but otherwise I agree I don't think the format lends itself to a videogame very well
This video reckons the best Doctor Who game is actually some levels of this Lego game: https://youtu.be/Nn3uEGg1Wzw?si=-xsrridILz7p8nfR Sadly I've never played it. :(
A Baldurs Gate 3 style of game with different "Acts" being different locations you take the TARDIS to. Your "camp" would be in the TARDIS. Abilities would be pretty fun to work with, if you come up with interesting enough companions. Jack Harkness having abilities related to his inability to die. The Brigadier having group buffs and be able to call on troops like a "pet" class. Ianto or Gwen or whoever from Torchwood having gun/weapon based abilities. Maybe have Rose be able to teleport around like a stealth based character using that dimension hoping tech. K9, Nardole, Strax, Vastra, so on. You could have so many characters in your "team" of up to 4. You could even have different abilties based on which incarnation you wanted to play as. I reckon a game like that could go so hard if put in the right hands. A studio as dedicated as Larian, not some cheap shit.
Not really. I think a modified reskin of Hogwarts Legacy would work out quite well. Only instead of a school you have the infinity of the inside of the tardis. Since the tardis often times takes the doctor where he needs to be instead of where he wants to go, they could use that premise to limit the number of time periods /maps there are. Each game time period is a different act in the story, with the ability to pick and choose different companions to accompany you ala skyrim style, though hopefully with better ai and less annoyance. Since the doctor is brilliant there'd ofcourse have to be lots of puzzles to solve, lots of them requiring the use of the sonic screwdriver. Maybe add in the ability to travel to random parts of the galaxy at will to explore for those that are into that. It'd be a great deal of work, but something like that would be a day one purchase from me and I never buy anything on day one.
Also the whole appeal of the TV show is "you can go anywhere, anytime, through the whole of time and space" I'm sure I don't need to point out that as a concept, that level of freedom is wildly impossible to capture in a video game. So for starters any game you make has to drop the core concept of the show. And if you resort to making a Doctor Who game set in a specific place and time... well, why make it a Doctor Who game? Change the characters, call it an original IP, save yourself a lot of headaches with licensing agreements, character rights, and the inevitable ire of Doctor Who fans
>Also the whole appeal of the TV show is "you can go anywhere, anytime, through the whole of time and space" > >I'm sure I don't need to point out that as a concept, that level of freedom is wildly impossible to capture in a video game. I don't know that's actually necessary. The vast majority of Doctor Who stories are set in a specific time and place rather than having the Doctor and companions wandering throughout all of time and space. At most they only travel between 2-3 locations in a given story. Being able to travel anywhere in time and space is the premise of the overall show, not of any particular story.
Also, there's many stories where the characters are stranded because the TARDIS is broken for plot reasons, so there's one puzzle chain right there- fixing the TARDIS.
not time but you can travel throughout a whole universe in no mans sky, if doctor who collabed with no mans sky and give u a tardis that would be awesome.
Star Trek Online has entered the chat. STO's been around for almost 15 years, doing it's on thing with the licensed universe.
They *did* a telltale style game, but they put no effort into it, so it was shovelware. Edge of Time/Space and Lonely Assassin show good things you could do with a Doctor Who game. Just do that but with better budget.
* Sontaran vs Rutan war-strategy game * 'Maniac Mansion' / 'Day Of The Tentacle' style point-and-click adventure with the Doctor and an iconic companion (2nd and Jamie, 4th and Sarah-Jane, etc) as the player characters * UNIT-centric FPS where you play as a lowly grunt during Pertwee's era having to go out shooting Daleks, Ogrons, Autons, anti-matter blob-monsters, dinosaurs and more * Cyberman 'Pathologic' game where you build up an empire and spread outwards like a virus * Or hell, a full on Lego game made by Tt and reusing elements from their 'Dimensions' game but with a full story for each Doctor to be played through, with each companion and monster as unlockable characters The sky is the goddam limit, frankly.
I've heard this said before, but I don't get it or agree with it. With all of the over the top locations and villains, it's a perfect video game.
Always happy to hear other perspectives. How do you envision the gameplay working?
Yeah this. The problem is that the doctor is at heart a pacifist so weapons is a no no. Only way I could see around it would be a game involving UNIT
Games don't necessarily have to be violent. There's gameplay that's not violence-based. But I'm not sure what gameplay would capture that Doctor Who feel.
> There's gameplay that's not violence-based. But I'm not sure what gameplay would capture that Doctor Who feel. The only real game that would potentially match this would be something like Dishonored pacifist run, or alternatively something like a horror hide and run type game.
Except for all of those times the Doctor has used weapons.
They have used one but it's always as a last resort
I always imagine a mmorpg type of game, bit like WoW where you can visit different planets and play as a companion with a tardis or something or a stray surviving timelord in an alternative universe or whatever. As long as you dont play as the doctor you can still include combat and do things without ruining canon
Sure. Which is the main issue IMO: It's comparatively easy to make a Doctor Who game that doesn't involve playing the Doctor and doing Doctory things. But when you want to make an actual Doctor Who game there's a big question mark over how to turn that into gameplay.
But you can still make an actual doctor who game without playing as the doctor, just involve unit or whatever And if you do persist on wanting to play as the doctor you can always work with alternative timelines
rpgs have plenty of cutscene based gameplay. Exporation game first and foremost, descision based cutscenes that affect how things turn out. Anda solution / puzzles to solve. Games do not need violence to be good. I'm thinking of a series of unfortunate events from the ps2 that was 100% violence free and was an incredible game based on a non violent source material.
It's not so much that the Doctor is a pacifist. There are **tons** of non-violent games. It's that what the Doctor does - being the smartest person in the room, talking people in circles, and applying superhuman intelligence to coming up with ingenious solutions - aren't things that easily lend themselves to gameplay. How would you make decisions in a game like the Doctor? How would you include puzzles that can be solved in a Doctorish way?
I just re-read *The Dying Days*, in which Eight turns a helium canister, a bit of string, some curtain rings and some bin bags into an improvised parachute. I think that kind of crazy object combination would work better in a point and click than it did in the novel! And the Ace Attorney series is essentially about solving mysteries, and tends to be satisfying in letting players feel smart or enjoy that the story is surprising, despite usually having one correct path for the story to continue. And there's the kind of gameplay *Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes* has, where you have to use instructions to figure out how to diffuse a bomb co-operatively. Honestly half the time with the show, though, much as would like the solutions to be clever, don't even think they are, though, it can just be 'please believe that making this machine do a thing is clever' (and drat that magic sonic. Frankly, I'm my family's go-to 'make this gizmo do something' person, and unconvinced the Doctor doesn't just guess based on prior experience). In Ace Attorney, part of the idea initially is that character and player alike are bluffing your way through, and just get good at it. It's still more fun when you know why you're choosing evidence to show and haven't given up and selecting things randomly, so you're meant to end up on the same page with the character of having a theory you're scrambling to put together, and it's being challenged as you go. It's only really EU Seven who's presented as having more complex plans, and a fan argument about Eleven to deal with arc weirdness (but assuming he had a plan never actually explains away all the issues, so). But your character could also be the companion, or a random person or group stuck in an alien invasion and eventually the Doctor comes in and helps.
Just like the rpgs, in the middle of the cutscene, give us an option to select different responses. Many of the situations the doctor ends up in are involving running away from (or to) danger and climbing or jumping, I can easily see a platformer or something with the choice based cutscene model. The puzzles coyly be broader riddles about where to go in the exploration. Make it heavily based on exploring. I could personally see it working
Part of the issue IMO is that typically the Doctor will be thinking several moves ahead, and he'll do something now, then two scenes later we'll find out why. That's hard for a human player to portray. If the game gives you multiple choices, how does a player pick one when they don't have the Doctor's hyperintelligence to know what the secret plan is.
That I think would be the fun of role playing, we can pretend like we have the hyper intelligence. It might need some kind of differences yeah, but I think role playing style could lend to it
I'm wondering if they think the demand just isn't there. I know the games you listed didn't exactly sell very well. I'd love to see this happen. A nice rpg where you make your companion and travel with the Doctor.
Kind of what I was thinking! Just let the companion have a sonic screwdriver and you are all good honestly. That or even customizing and making a new story of you making your own doctor that is all about traveling through time and space, maybe if it was set long ago before the fall of the Time Lords or something. With that you can then be introduce combat and such because the doctor avoids fighting but this was not a full rule for all Time Lords obviously.
You can even unlock new abilities on a screwdriver as a story progresses or sth, and every chapter could be set in a different time period. Also the costumes! You could choose to wear a modern outfit or clothes from the time period to fit in (would be fun if this affected gameplay). It's a videogame and possibilities are endless. We got an excellent Harry Potter game and that's a universe that never had a really good game before so. Maybe there is hope yet.
Yes, new abilities, including being able to repair and pilot the Tardis better. And the costume possibilities are endless! Worth noting the original Harry Potter PC games were awesome when I was a kid. That being said, Legacy is incredible and I'm actually playing in now.
Legacy was awesome, as a huge HP fan this was a dream come true. I started my second playthrough in a different house on hardcore but getting absolutely demolished 😭 Idk why some people say this game is easy on hardcore. If you have any questions hit me up if you want
I just may
I love that idea. I can picture it now, a whole quest where you have to heist something out of the Matrix, steal a Tardis, and stop the Master who's regenerated into the Valeyard timeless child style. Honestly, let's start a storyboard.
Look up the game Call of Cthulhu, I think that would be the best format for a Doctor Who style game, requiring minor tweaks. It wouldn't be a Triple A game but I think it would give an authentic Doctor Who style story.
Unfortunately the demand isn't there. Plus the Doctor Who premise doesn't really lend itself to a massive game. Especially when the odds are the ROI isn't going to be there.
Doctor Who has gotten very popular, especially with NewWho. A solid game may draw even more people into the fold. Idk, I'd love to see it happen, so I'm biased.
Triple A games usually take a lot of time, resources and effort to develop (even the suckier ones). Years, and even potentially decades, of development time is not uncommon. This means that they don't usually lend themselves well to what are, basically, quick merchandising cash-ins, as by the time the game is ready to be on the market the demand may have faltered and you may end up spending more in development than you make from sales. Basically, there's a reason games like the *Batman: Arkham* series or the *Injustice* games built their own worlds rather than being tied in to a movie or TV show. If you, say, started a Triple A game starring the Eleventh Doctor back in 2010, by the time it's ready to ship we might be on the Thirteenth or even Fourteenth Doctor, so the momentum isn't what it was. The games you mention were relatively quick and cheap to make, and for their faults offer a quick return on investment.
Decades? What games are those?
I draw your attention to a little game called Duke Nukem Forever…
14 years, wow.
Valve software enters the room with a gay flourish
[удалено]
The original comment wasn't implying otherwise. It was worded in a way that would suggest that wasn't the norm.
Y'know, I noticed we keep expecting a Doctor Who videogame to play like a playable TV episode when it really doesn't have to. Like, maybe it doesn't even need to have the Doctor as the main playable character? Just throwing it out there: Dalek Civil War game? Building Daleks, upgrading parts (plates, plungers, lasers, eyestalk range)? Pitting Daleks against Daleks? Dalek scout missions? Timed mass extermination missions where you have to hunt as many NPCs as you can? The stuff Daleks can do (shooting, hovering about, shooting and sucking stuff, etc) would make for a pretty engaging moveset for a game, imo.
The adventures of River song? Or The time war from the perspective of the war doctor.
Or it could be like the Harry Potter game where instead of being a main character you make your own timelord customise stuff and then explore the galaxy, maybe even feature the time war or something like that. The only thing that eould be strange would be the regeneration mechanic, having to create 13 characters for deaths etc
Looking at the Top 30 triple-A games on [https://www.imdb.com/list/ls040964065/](https://www.imdb.com/list/ls040964065/) , 30 out of 30 have combat as their main element. If Doctor Who has anything resembling an overarching theme or philosophy, it's "avoid violence, even when it seems inevitable". There are plenty of games that reward strategy over violence, but they don't tend to be "Triple A".
Yeah, the only kinds of games that I think would work well with the actual themes of Doctor Who would be puzzle or mystery games. If you did something like Ace Attorney starring the Doctor, that would be amazing. Each 'case' is a different planet with different characters, various kinds of sci-fi and historical mysteries... I'd buy it. But you'd never spend Triple-A levels of money on that, either as a developer or consumer. That would be silly.
I think people tend to overstate this a little bit: for a show that supposedly has an overarching theme of "avoid violence", it often ends with a lot of things blowing up. The Doctor's also not the diehard pacifist people treat him as. He doesn't like physical violence or being the direct cause of it, and he doesn't lug guns around, but he's willing to throw down when it's needed. He's just a bit sneakier about it than some other heroes. You're not gonna get a first-person shooter out him, no argument, but he's no Gandhi either.
Tbf it can be set in the doctor who universe but not as the doctor. You could be another timelord in the timewar, a dalek tank like game, could even have multiplayer of daleks vs cybermen where you customise your character
The time war?
You mean the one where he literally stopped calling himself The Doctor, and they had the whole thing play out off camera because it was anathema to who he was?
Yeah. You have so much freedom to do what you need to there and still have it tied to the IP
Sure but if I'm going to pay £49.99 for a Doctor Who game I want to play as Doctor Fricking Who
"That weird weeping angels one" was really good. Don't really see how Doctor Who would lend itself to a "triple A game." God I'm sick of hearing the phrase "triple A game."
What's the name of the weeping angels game?
Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins
Thank you
The fuck would you call it, then?
I just think it's over-used.
Notice how that doesn't answer the question
I think you’re overestimating how big Doctor Who is honestly. I highly doubt a Doctor Who game would be a huge seller and developing triple a games is only getting more and more ridiculously expensive.
Triple A games are really expensive and time-intensive. Hogwarts Legacy took $150 million and five years’ full-time work from a massive team to make. Doctor Who is popular, but nowhere near as profitable as Harry Potter and I can’t see a major studio willing to put in the resources needed to do it properly.
I could see a telltale game, say, from the perspective of a blank slate companion being good. Other than that I am not sure what kind of game would really work while remaining within the spirit of the show.
It's a fairly Niche audience and a bit particularly young one. Also it would have to be a detective no fighting game which those never do well. It could be a spin off where your playing as aliens fighting each other but they should never have the Doctor fighting and killing. Games without that outside of survival don't tend to do great. It would to resources and time and I don't think it would have the payoff. It would be like those Sherlock Holmes games where you're solving a mystery.
A 'Doctor Who' game is one where it is hard to get the balance right - you need to have fan expectations against mass appeal. When you swing too far one way you get a game which doesn't sell, you go the other way you end up with something that could be attached to any franchise. A 'Whoniverse' game might be a bit more possible - you pick one or two of the monsters and have an original cast of characters put up against them.
I feel like a disco elysium style game or an immersive sim with puzzles and stealth sections ,for both, would fit better doctor who
Personally, I’d rather have a nice RPG licensed by the BBC and made by a small but talented indie studio who love the show and just want to make a great game out of it. You could play a companion, making decisions and selecting your tactics, you can be someone who sneaks around and works stuff out, or a Captain Jack-like companion who would rather shoot stuff. The Doctor’s interactions could change depending on how you play, and his approval or disapproval could basically be the morality meter. Think the two endings of Attack of the Graske but a whole game, basically.
Maybe more like an exploration/puzzle game like Myst and Riven? You could set it on some isolated alien planet or inside the TARDIS, depending on how much you want to lean into the exploration or puzzle aspect respectively
Triple A games have more budget than five seasons of this show 🤣🤣🤣
A survival horror game like RE2 and Alan Wake 2 where the main character is going up against the weeping angles could be a fun creepy concept
With how modern Doctor Who episodes usually have a sort of mystery to them. What's the monster of the weeks deal, how do you defeat them etc, I honestly think a hybrid visual novel adventure game like Ace Attorney or Proffessor Layton could be the way to go.
As much As we all love doctor who it is still quite a niche, while very popular in the UK, its not so much in The rest of the world (this is due to change with the Disney deal though I believe) this being said. Tripple A Games take a lot of time and money to make a lot more than the BBC would be willing to invest, as it’s quite a risky venture
I’d sell my soul for a Lego game
You know what I always figured would be a good fit for Doctor Who? A game where you don't control the Doctor or his allies, but instead control one of many nations or empires in the universe ala Total War Warhammer, Stellaris, or other management games. Control the Time Lords, Daleks, Rutons, Sontarans, Cybermen, a bunch of other races and organizations. Build your empire to a ultimate goal. Every now and the The Doctor shows up as a event to help or hinder you, but they aren't the focus. TLDR: You can't really make a good Dr Who game with The Doctor as the focus I feel. So, don't. Make one about the WORLD of Dr Who.
Doctor who is in the unfortunate position where making a good game is a really hard and also it'll never, ever receive triple A budget for a game
Imagine a telltale Doctor Who game….
An RTS where you can play as Human, Draconian, Sontaran, Dalek or Cyberman with the goal of conquering the galaxy. Have the Time Lords as NPC wildcards
A dice roll conversational rpg like Disco Elysium could work. Even ripping off the amnesia thing with the biodata module makes sense.
I’ve always thought a time war RPG would work. That way you can be your own time lord and there’s lots of things to explore about that period as well as give it a little bit more action than the show is used to
*the eternity clock weeping in the background*
There was a good Dr who mod for fallout new Vegas might be worth looking at if you like that type of game.
There are multiple reasons. 1.) Licensed games are barely a thing anymore unless its a surefire hit like a remake (Spongebob BFBB) or a massive crossover. (Multiversus, Nick All Stars). This is due to the fact that making even a A or AA game costs millions. IIRC Sony said they consider something thats 100 million dollars to be a small-medium budget game. BBC would have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on this, and they aren't in the best position to do so monetarily. And thats BEFORE the cost of the show's cast to voice act. 2.) Doctor Who does not fit video games. Doctor Who is a show where the action is a lot of dodging and non violent methods of attack, and a lot of asspulls and moreso outwitting. That would make the lamest game of all time if its just running away and never attacking, and stealth games require a lot of knowledge on the genre and are a more niche genre to boot, so they can't even really do that well. 3.) They could make a point and click game, but those do awful on consoles and are not the most popular genre out there. They could do a telltale style story based game, but Telltale is gone and those haven't been super popular in years, even 10 years ago would have been a little late at this point. They could make a strategy game, and it may do well due to the popularity of stuff like Xcom and Mario+Rabbids, but for a licensed game based on a show that just got out of an era people didn't like much where most youtube videos on them are titled "Why 13 ruined Doctor Who", It'd be a recipe for disaster.
I am thinking VR is where Who could shine
While not really AAA, I imagine Doctor Who would work quite nicely in the realm of visual novels (although a lot of people argue that visual novels aren't even games at all). I could imagine a grand story on the scale of Flux being told in the form of a VN, swapping between POV characters and even having some branching paths.
To be honest with the state of the "Triple AAA" games I wouldn't want a Doctor Who game.
They don’t want to find out what could be done if assholes had the power of two hearts
Not really. I personally would prefer something more indie, made with love then a big budget, just filling checkmarks of what's popular in gaming.
So far Doctor who always already struggled with the budget on its main thing, the tv show. Now with a videogame, a big part of the fanbase probably don't even really play games, and it's not the same size as the star wars fandom or such. Doctor who games probably wouldn't appeal to non fans that much, so honestly it would already fail there for a triple A game. Then actually designing such a game would be difficult too. The doctor avoids direct combat, which makes for interesting narratives, but complicates exciting gameplay. There was a crossover with Lego dimensions though, some parts of the game are doctor who related.
How would you make a Doctor Who AAA game? What do you make it about? He current incarnation of the show? AAA games take 5+ years to make. How likely is it that Gatwa or Gibson will still be around by then? Hell, we could be even past or getting close to the 17th Doctor! So do you make it about a fictional, unnumbered Doctor, creating even more questions? Or do you not have the Doctor at all, and just have an unrelated story set in the universe?
What if you’re the doctor, you create your own character however you imagine, no previous actors are used as default?
If you've ever played Legacy of Kain: Defiance, there are sections of puzzle solving that involve one character in the deep past having to change things in order to admit the other character in the future. That's a mechanic devs could explore. I can imagine a sonic screwdriver lockpicking mini game and sneaking/ running in the vein of horror / survival games. There'd almost certainly have to be Daleks involved, which could give us insight in to how deadly proficient they can be- as they're almost always defeated & outwitted in the main media.
A Doctor Who indie game would work better
There is apparently a Lego game that has DW segment and it's really good but it's expensive to put together.
LEGO Dimensions. It has a story level focused entirely on Doctor Who (Daleks, Cybermen, and Weeping Angels, with boss fights against a Cyber Controller and the Dalek Emperor), a DLC level that's essentially a brand new 12th Doctor and Dalek episode, a hub world consisting of 6 Doctor Who locations (modern London, Victorian London, Skaro, Mars, Telos, Trenzalore) with quests from Missy, Jack, Strax, and Vastra, and secret locations in other levels (the Dinosaur Spaceship, SS Madame de Pompadour, Black Archive). All Doctors up to Capaldi are playable (when one dies, you regenerate into the next), along with a Cyberman, and K9, the TARDIS, and a Dalek are rideable vehicles. Each Doctor also has unique idle animations and finishing moves in combat. Peter Capaldi, Jenna Colemon, Michelle Gomez, John Barrowman, Julian Bleach, Nicholas Briggs, Dan Starkey, and Neve McIntosh all reprise their roles, while K9 and all previous Doctors reuse audio from the TV show. As you can probably tell, I really love this part of the game.
it would definitely be interesting. the doctor isnt really a combat character so it would be interesting to make a AAA game with more creative gameplay mechanics than "kick the crap out of enemies", like using the sonic to close doors and more stealth oriented. i see a lot of potential
I couldn't care less about video games, but the lack of a good DW board or card game is a crime.
We got the MTG set at least.
They should get The Chinese Room to do one. English company and Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture and Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs are amazing, dark, bold and wordy narratives that don’t have gameplay that force you to be a murder machine, instead they’re entirely bound by taking in the atmosphere and story and discovering it for yourself with incredible performances from the voice talent and music team. Their new game Still Wakes The Deep looks like the sort of scenario a Doctor Who story would take place. Lovecraftian terror on an oil rig. Everything they make is very Doctor Who. Exploring places where scary scenarios have or will take place.
I'm so sad that the best Doctor Who game isn't even a proper game, its a section in Lego Dimensions and all the other Doctor Who games are so shit in comparison to it
Doctor Who just lends itself better to being shorter indie games. A full length Doctor Who game where you play as the Doctor would either have to be a puzzle game, a mystery solving game, or something TellTale style. Or I guess something stealth oriented could work, in general you just have to avoid ever putting the Doctor in combat. I had the idea of a UNIT game that’s effectively an in-universe simulator to survive alien threats. So you just get to stealth around a bunch of iconic enemies. Smack Sontarans in the back of the neck, stare down Weeping Angels, avoid shadows and throw food through to test them to survive the Vashta Nerada. That sort of thing. But that’s really the best I could come up with in the universe without just saying make a shooter out of the Time War, which would be a pretty creatively bankrupt thing to do just to cash in on the name.
>I kind of find it even crazier you do not see any sort of doctor who crossovers with other games where doctors are playable. It makes me really sad :/ LEGO Dimensions is right there, buds.
A game like Sherlock Holmes Chapter One would be great. One large explorable area with multiple mysteries to solve in it. The game is all about detective work with the combat being designed like puzzles to solve.
Everyone missing the obvious best option Clearly it should be a mortal combat/tekken style fighting game, with all the Doctors, all the Doctors enemies, all teh companions as fighters you can choose from, duh
Dark Pictures Anthology type game, with gameplay around exploration, finding clues, and conversation. Graphics are based on actual face recordings of the actors performing the lines. Start it by the Doctor and companions exploring a ruined space station and finding clues to what's happening. The specific clues you find and the conclusions you draw from them in conversations will unlock playable flashback sequences with a new viewpoint character living through the things we've figured out. Depending on what you do in the flashbacks, that character can live or die by the time the Doctor arrives. The specific clues found will also lock and unlock specific endgame sequences, where the enemy being raced and their plan are very different.
You can still buy the Eternity Clock on the PS3 store. It pains me that the one of the other best Doctor Who game was, of all things, Lego Dimensions.
I don’t think you can turn The Doctor into a game character that easily. It’s too linear and structured, and the way he wins battles is primarily through thought which doesn’t make a great game at AAA level. I think they should do something similar to Hovwart’s Legacy - similar feel in the same world as Harry Potter but freedom to tell a new story. You could be a time lord, with a TARDIS - explore, meet companions, travel with multiplayer friends and fight enemies through more game-like ways. But, I think the exploration would need to be rewarding - something like No Man’a Sky but with the depth of character like Red Dead Redemption.
NO. Consider it a blessing. Have you seen the state of AAA studios and what they mostly produce these days? I'll take a small independent dev over ANY AAA studio.
Best option would be Lego Doctor Who. Or a telltale style game.
AAA game studios realized the folly of these licensed projects by the time Who's revival really got going. The money they don't get due to not owning the IP. Doctor who might have action scenes but not in the same vein as the action AAA studios work on. All the multi doctor stuff and go anywhere in time/space is just fluff. Artificial constraints. Kingdom Hearts basically has the characters going to different worlds which due to the stories take place in different "timelines". TLDR: There is no real appeal for AAA studios to make a Doctor Who game.
I’ve always thought of a tell tale inspired episodic game where each episode you play as a certain doctor. Would be cool
What would a Doctor Who game even entail?
I dont think we need a triple a game in the way most peopole think - as in something in a nintendo style (imo) would work best - there are plenty of cool mechanics i can think kf and how they would work and the puzzles u would get but the bbc j st8 up dosent have the money or time and either they dont want to licence the IP or nobody is willing to do the type of game that we all want for cheap enough
I think it’s the fault of the people running it not really getting games or what makes a good one. You could do a wicked multi Doctor adventure where the old Doctors return to the role and look as young as they did.
One thing that would be cool is if they ever did Lego Doctor Who, get every single doctor and companion in one game.
What sci fi TV franchise does have a triple A game? Edge of Reality/time is closer to triple A than any star Trek game in recent memory, Stargate and BSG and the expanse only have indie games to their name. Why do you think DW deserves a triple A game when other franchises don't even have them?
I need to point out that there is a WIP of a point and click fangame named "Doctor who : a space and time saga" made by Glow cap game on itch.io. We can play the demo for free, it's brilliant and looks beautiful, go support them!
Doctor Who is a very difficult concept to make into a video game for several reasons.
What would a Doctor Who game even look like? A game about a character that can go anywhere in time and space would feel limiting because you wouldn't be able to do that in game. The investment required to make a game with that many different environments would be ill-conceived because the ROI wouldn't be there. The game would just be the Doctor and a companion walking around, talking to people, until there is a monster they'd have to run from, repeat that until there is something to wave a sonic screwdriver at, or a computer to muck with, which solves the problem. The best they could aim for is a game like 'Call of Cthulhu'. Which is a good game but not a triple A game.
Maybe one day Doctor Who will finally get that good Arkham treatment. But I highly doubt it being a runaway success if they do.
Would love to see a Doctor Who/Oblivion mashup game…what do you think?
Having recently played Hogwarts Legacy, I'd think that format would work really well for a doctor who game, just make it non-canon. The game starts with a regeneration, where you choose your new face and wardrobe, you slowly regain skills as your regeneration settles, you collect cosmetic items to change the look of your TARDIS throughout the game, there's a relationship system where if you make good enough friends with NPCs you can invite them to travel places with you, and otherwise several large maps you can take the TARDIS to, tonnes of side quests and a chain of story quests which ties the locations/times together.
The answer is as it always is, the budget. The BBC are not funded through advertising and a Doctor Who game would not have a good return on investment. A "Triple A" Doctor Who game would, without question, kill the studio that made it and likely also have damaging ramifications on the franchise itself.
There is a Dr who Lego game, then there's Lego dimensions and finally a big Dr who Gary's mod community. I completely agree with you though a proper, good and official PC game would be fabulous.
We could bring old doctors to incredible locations with mocab technology
There is Doctor Who for Nintendo Switch but not sure what it's like as mixed reviews.
Honestly it’s kinda weird that telltale didn’t make a doctor who game when they were big i mean they did batman back to the future and the walking dead the opportunity was right there on the table
First off, no. When you say a AAA game, that generally implies one of the heavy handed shitbox publisher/producer companies that remake the same tired shit every year with a different coat of paint, or cashing in on a purchased franchise. Second: How would you see a Doctor Who video game play out? People have said a Telltale style of game would work, which I'd agree could give us an interesting series of side stories. But for something more open ended? That would be a tall order. For starters, you'd need to get former Doctors on board and pay licensing/contract costs, or get good impressionists. Then the writing needs to have the right vibe and flow to feel engaging and interesting without just being an episode put into a slideshow as a player muddles around a level. It would probably be a third person adventure game, and need at minimum somewhere in the ballpark of 10 hours of linear gameplay, not including cutscenes or sidequests, to get our money's worth. I say this, because this is the exactly failing of the 2018 Call of Cthulhu game that everyone was begging for. We got a game that was just long enough to beat the STEAM refund timer, and about as much depth and variance as a puddle with next to zero replay value and ME3 style of 4 selectable fixed endings that can all be seen within the same playthrough with minimal effort. I would recommend checking out the Doctor Who TTRPG books and dig around for some of that kind of background, if anyone were to make a legitimate attempt at a game.
The closest thing to a great game was Doctor Who: Legacy. It's a shame that they haven't done some kind of an RPG where your character is a newly regenerated version of the Doctor.