Skip to main content

Doctor Who: The Adventure Games to return for a second season

Image used with permission by copyright holder

The Doctor returns once again, this time to the interactive world of downloadable games. Earlier this year, in something of a first, the BBC decided to extend the 13 episode season of Doctor Who by adding four episode-like games, available through BBC.  The game/episodes have been considered a success, and a second batch of Doctor Who: The Adventure Games has been greenlit for next year.

Of the current games, each story takes place during the events of the previous season, and follows the adventures of the 11th Doctor, played by Matt Smith, and his travelling companion Amy Pond, played by Karen Gillan, both of whom contributed their voices and likenesses to the games. All four episodes are considered cannon to the history of the show. The idea was considered a huge success, after 1.6 million people downloaded the first of four games, and a second series has been commissioned to accompany the upcoming season of Doctor Who, which will air in the UK early next year, and in the U.S. on BBC America shortly after.

The current series of adventure games has recently released the third episode, and the fourth is scheduled for later this year. Although free in the UK thanks to BBC licensing fees, the first four games are being sold as a bundle through Direct2Drive for $13. No official word yet on the price of the next series of games, but they will likely be very close in cost.

Editors' Recommendations

Ryan Fleming
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Ryan Fleming is the Gaming and Cinema Editor for Digital Trends. He joined the DT staff in 2009 after spending time covering…
How fitness video games can help improve your mental well-being
A character holds the Ring Fit as they run down a path surrounded by green fields. Their hair is almost like fire.

Fitness as a standalone concept -- whether someone is running on their own, going to the gym, or just even walking on a daily basis -- has overall net positives for each person. The World Health Organization notes that “some physical activity is better than doing none” at all. People see visible, physical benefits from physical activity, including improved health, muscle growth, and improved coordination and balance. And when it comes to fitness video games, those same benefits hold true.

Fitness games have been around since the 1980s in some capacity when early iterations like the Joyboard for the Atari 2600 were first rolled out. But some of the most notable early fitness games that truly saw success come in the form of the arcade hit Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) and Wii Fit. Both games have been positively received and effectively worked in getting players up and moving, be that through dance or more traditional workout methods like yoga and strength training.

Read more
The studio behind Pokémon is making a brand new action-adventure game
A ronin stands alone in a forest in Project Bloom concept art.

Game Freak, the developer behind the popular Pokémon series, announced it is working on a new action-adventure game code-named Project Bloom. The game will be published by Private Division, a subsidiary of Take-Two that brought us games like The Outer Worlds, OlliOlli World, and Kerbal Space Program 2.

This is the first time Game Freak has partnered with a North American publisher during the development of one of its games. It has either self-published or worked with companies like Nintendo or Sega in the past. On Private Division's end, this is simply the latest in a long string of publishing deals made with developers like Ori and Blind Forest's Moon Studios and Silent Hill 2 remake's Bloober Team.

Read more
The forgotten games of 2022: 7 sleeper hits worth returning to
Three Hopes characters on a stylized purple background.

These days, it's simply impossible to keep up with every great game that releases in a year. With such a mass of experiences to choose from, players have no choice but to curate. That means that every year is bound to produce what I've started calling "forgotten games." It's a term I use to describe sleeper hits that would have garnered attention in a less crowded year, but were simply lost among a sea of great titles.

"Forgotten games" tend to break my heart. Generally, they didn't do anything wrong -- save for maybe skimping on their marketing budgets. They're strong games, just ones that didn't generate conversation. Sometimes it's just that they weren't groundbreaking enough to break into "game of the year" discussions. They're not polarizing or controversial enough to generate discourse. These games simply aren't conversation pieces and that's a difficult place to be in during our social age, which makes them hard to prioritize.

Read more