Doctor Who: 10 Things The 2021 Video Game NEEDS To Be Great

You've probably seen a lot of discussion about this topic recently - due to The Last Of Us Part II being twice as long as its predecessor - but it really does feel like games are getting longer and longer. Everything is either a giant open-world, or a live service time-sink: what happened to the 10-15 hour single-player experiences of the PS3/360 era?

This is just one reason why we hope that Maze Theory's Doctor Who game avoids an open world, but a more important reason is that a convincing open world set in the Whoniverse simply won't be possible. How would you even put all of time and space into a game? Doctor Who contains so many distinct alien races and fantastical locations that a No Man's Sky-style copy/paste job simply wouldn't work here.

Instead, we propose that the game should be structured just like the TV show. Divide it up into 10-15 "episodes" that take an hour or so to complete, each telling its own standalone tale. Include clues to an overarching story in every level (e.g. Bad Wolf), and use the last stage to pay everything off, like an epic series finale. Also, make the TARDIS a "level select hub" that players can wander around in-between stages.

The benefits of this structure would be numerous. For one, the game would be more digestible, allowing players to jump in for short, hour-long chunks. Two, having a dozen standalone levels would allow Maze Theory to give each adventure its own unique flavour: a different monster, different supporting characters, a different setting, and a different objective each time, just like the unique weekly episodes of the show.

Sheer variety is one of the reasons why Doctor Who has endured for so long, and by building the game like this, Maze Theory could give us a tight and focused package that also gives you a completely fresh adventure each time you boot up a new stage.