We Played A Demo Of 'Doctor Who: The Edge Of Time' VR Game And Almost Got Killed By A Dalek [Comic-Con 2019]
Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink, and you're dead. At least, you'll be dead in the video game Doctor Who: The Edge of Time, the upcoming virtual-reality game based on the long-running BBC sci-fi series. And okay, you can probably blink (there isn't a VR technology quite advanced enough to detect blinking yet), but you will still have to follow the Doctor's other instructions: Don't turn your back and don't look away. Because if you do, you could actually lose this game.
As opposed to the other Doctor Who VR adventure that we covered earlier this year, Doctor Who: The Runaway, Doctor Who: The Edge of Time is a proper VR video game that will be coming to various VR-capable consoles this fall. /Film got to play a demo of The Edge of Time at San Diego Comic-Con, and we almost got exterminated in the process.
We've all thought about what it would be like to go on an adventure with the Doctor (played in the most recent incarnation by the sublime Jodie Whittaker), but Doctor Who: The Edge of Time actualizes how truly terrifying it would be. There's a lot of pressure when the Doctor (voiced by Whittaker) is walking you through building an advanced radio out of items in a junkyard while an alien spaceship is bearing down on you. And when you get captured by the Daleks' forcefield, things only get more dire — I was in the middle of building this radio when I was caught in the forcefield and unable to move while playing the demo for Doctor Who: The Edge of Time. (The guide fruitlessly trying to help me through it was not impressed by my screams.) But luckily, you're armed with the Doctor's trusty sonic screwdriver, a sort of catch-all device that comes quite in handy in the VR video game.
The game is played with a VR headset, headphones, and two joysticks — the left joystick controls your movements, while the right controls the camera placement and the sonic screwdriver sitting at your hip. As someone who has never played a VR video game before, the gameplay took a little getting used to, but once I did, it's quite seamless — until I was frozen in place by attacking Daleks, of course.
The 10-minute demo was only a small part of the entire video game, which will consist of more than two hours of gameplay. In addition to facing off against the Daleks, you will be able to cross paths with famous Doctor Who monsters like the Weeping Angels and the Judoon. The Weeping Angels are the monsters I'm most intrigued by — their nature as aliens that can attack when you're not looking at them make them the perfect VR game villain. There aren't many details available about the plot of The Edge of Time yet, but the game will reportedly allow players to "embark on a brand-new and fully-interactive adventure, inspired by the show's 55-year history and starring the Doctor's current incarnation, played by Jodie Whittaker."
Developed by Publisher Playstack and Developer Maze Theory, Doctor Who: The Edge of Time will launch on PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Vive Cosmos in September 2019.