Doctor Who: The Edge of Time is a lovingly created VR game that features the beloved franchise.
It’s a VR experience that is available on the Oculus, Playstation 4, and PC.
We decided to check it out and compile our thoughts on how the game feels, how it plays and whether or not it’s worth your hard-earned bucks.
Quick Summary
In this post, we will shed light upon:
- The premise
- The gameplay
- The polish (or lack thereof)
So without further ado, let’s get started.
The Premise
The game has you traverse the universe of Doctor Who while being in the shoes of an unnamed protagonist. Your goal is to find three Time Crystals so that you can save the Doctor from the end of time.
David Tennant and Jodie Whittaker do a good-enough job with the material that they are given but overall, the plot feels like a mediocre Doctor Who episode.
Once you meet up with the beloved Time Lord, your goal is to find the crystals, find the source of the Reality Virus and finally, eliminate it.
It also doesn’t really help that any of the impact of the dialogue is minimized due to sci-fi jargon and made-up words that don’t really mean anything.
This is made worse by the fact that the game features a ton of dialogue that simply serves as exposition.
We would’ve liked it a lot more if the story was pushed forward through gameplay rather than long and boring cut scenes with never-ending dialogue.
The Gameplay
As you get into the gameplay and start playing, however, Doctor Who fans will definitely find many things they’ll recognize.
Much of the level-design features fan-favorite moments as well as iconic enemies featured in the franchise such as the Weeping Angels, Daleks and Cybermen.
While it’s exciting for fans of the franchise to see these familiar settings and enemies, the happiness doesn’t last long when they actually start to play. This is because the controls are highly janky and oftentimes, unresponsive.
One major complaint that we have is that oftentimes, there’s just not a whole lot of gameplay.
This is something we touched upon in the previous section but this is highly apparent in the middle part of the game.
It really feels like the plot of this VR game was simply just written up as a script for an episode and not with the intention of it being a VR game.
This is because there are a ton of instances where people just stand around and talk about the apparent doom that we could face. This constant state of “telling, not showing” is really what brings the game down for us.
It really feels like a missed opportunity where it could’ve been something a lot more if they cut down the dialogue and focused more on creating unique VR sequences.
That being said, just like any season of the show, the VR game also has its moments.
For example, we’d be lying if we said we weren’t absolutely terrified when we were being hunted by Weeping Angels at one point through the playthrough.
Furthermore, there do exist some iconic moments from the show that the fans will love. However, while that may be great for fans of the show, it doesn’t really do much for someone who just wants to enjoy it as a VR experience.
It’s a whole lot more focused on fan service than it is on actually trying to be a good VR experience. That’s really its core problem and we feel it’s something that is almost always the problem with games that are based on pre-existing franchises.
The game is at its best when it comes to horror.
Maze Theory has done a great job developing sequences that have you squirming and desperately trying to figure out how to beat them.
The game also has a myriad of very effective jump-scares that are developed in a very interesting way to hold the user in suspense. Furthermore, the game’s best sequence, in our opinion, is definitely the encounter with the Weeping Angels.
The encounter has you questioning your every move and invokes this sense of paranoia inside of you that we felt was just great. It did a great job of replicating exactly what an encounter with an entity like that would be like.
One complaint that we have is the fact that the game can sometimes feel a bit too easy.
Even though many parts are terrifying and have you running to figure out how to get out of them, they’re still fairly simple, where you can easily figure out what to do.
Even some of the puzzles are super easy and don’t really offer much of a challenge.
Hence, they stop feeling like worthwhile puzzles and start feeling like tedious chores you have to do to get to the fun parts.
Other parts of the game that are not horror-based are passable. For example, there are some sequences where you go through some run-of-the-mill puzzles that aren’t too hard but hard enough to make you feel happy when you solve them.
Later on in the game, you have an encounter with the Daleks which is fairly well-made. The first sequence is a cookie-cutter stealth segment which is then followed by a super fun rail-shooter experience.
The Polish (Or Lack Thereof)
While the game does its best to faithfully recreate the world of Dr. Who, there are often times when you can see the cracks. The game’s lack of polish is something that often becomes apparent, and it’s definitely quite immersion-breaking.
There are many times when you’ll see texture pop-ins or pop-outs when exploring certain environments. This also tends to happen during cutscenes.
Lack of polish plays a huge role in breaking immersion.
Furthermore, there’s a section earlier on in the game with a flashlight that simply does not look good or polished at all. We’re not quite sure if it was because of the low-res textures or the fact that they were popping in and out so much but yeah. It’s rough.
While it’s true that none of them are really “game-breaking”, they do tend to take you out of the experience. This is sad to see because this game does have a lot of sequences that really pull you in and immerse you to your core.
It’d be a shame if many players experience these issues during those particular scenes and for them, the experience is just completely ruined.
Conclusion
That’s it for our review of the Doctor Who VR game, The Edge of Time.
If you’re a diehard Doctor Who fan, then we definitely recommend it as it has a lot of aspects that you’ll most definitely enjoy. However, if you’re just a casual gamer looking for a worthwhile VR experience, then it’s best you look elsewhere.
What do you think of Doctor Who: The Edge of Time? Let us know in the comments section below.
