The free-to-play MMO is coming to PCs in March and we've got all kinds of information about how you'll be helping the Doctor in his latest adventure.
As a property, Doctor Who kind of seems like a no-brainer for the video game treatment: expansive fiction in a pretty open universe, all manner of improbable sci-fi technology featuring deadly, exotic alien enemies across time. But then, you realize that the concept might be a tougher nut to crack than you initially thought: the Doctor's whole thing, for the most part, is his way of coming up with pretty non-violent solutions to intergalactic, cross-time menaces. How do you make a game that's still exciting while staying true to the Doctor?
Speaking with them by phone last week, it was clear that Robert Nashak, executive vice president, BBC Worldwide Digital Entertainment and Games and Max Engel, senior product manager, BBC Worldwide Digital Entertainment and Games think that their group has it figured out. Working in conjunction with Sega-owned developer Three Rings Design Inc. (Puzzle Pirates, Spiral Knights), they're looking to bring the experience of going on adventures alongside the Doctor to PC's with the March release of Doctor Who: Worlds In Time, a free-to-play MMO where you join the enigmatic Timelord—and gamers around the world, of course—in attempting to fix "broken" time. Starting today, the game is in open beta on its site, http://www.doctorwhowit.com/, with an official launch in March of next year, where players will be able to explore the game's ten worlds and ten monster races drawn from episodes throughout the history of the show (initially, at least—Three Rings and BBC Digital are looking to expand in the months following the release). According to Robert Nashak, the end-goal here is to create "the largest Doctor Who community built ever online."
The concept involves your typical Doctor Who crisis scenario: there's a rip in the time vortex—the swirly time tube that the Doctor's TARDIS hurtles through at the opening of every episode—and as one of the Doctor's many companions around the universe, you'll have to help him and other players fix these fractures in time through a variety of puzzles developed by Three Rings. Engels explained the conceit for the game was that "shards of time" have been dispersed throughout various locations in Worlds In Time's planets and the Doctor needs your help in reassembling the timeline. As a player, you'll start off in your pajamas, whisked away from your own world as current series regular Karen Gillen found herself at the beginning of the fifth season, joining the Matt Smith incarnation of the character.
"What the player will do is go on missions on different worlds... when the player arrives, at this specific location, it will be what we call in 'devastated' state," Engels goes on to say—these worlds will be thoroughly decimated wrecks requiring your what Third Ring and BBC Digital are calling "interventions:" narrative content based around solving puzzles with the help of NPCs and other players. The context of these interventions could be anything from opening a door to save New New York to removing a rogue consciousness from the planet of Ember.
Of course, this being a F2P MMO, the game will be microtransaction-based—players start off with a daily allotment of the in-game energy/currency, "chronons," but can purchase more to modify their character or get more time for interventions and—most importantly—upgrades for their "gadget," a customizable device which will ultimately become a sonic screwdriver, similar to the Doctor's own multipurpose tool, which can in turn help you solve puzzles by giving your character perk-like abilities and enhancements. Nashak is clear that the game is completely playable without the purchase of additional chronons and is designed so that you can explore and finish the intervention in a world without purchasing a single one outside of your daily allotment—they're simply a way of extending the game.
These are, of course, just the nuts and bolts of the game. How will you play it? What are the locations like? How are the puzzles handled? What's it like hanging out with a Timelord? Well, I actually got to get a brief look at the game and a brief walkthrough and will detail what I saw there—and more about the universe that Three Rings and BBC Digital are trying to create—in a post tomorrow.
You can get your first look at Doctor Who: Worlds In Time on the game's site while it's in open beta.
Doctor Who: Worlds in Time Trailer
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