Official Star Trek Doctor Who Crossover Is Destined For Disaster
Fans of both franchises have been clamoring for a major Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover for years, and it’s finally happening in the most unexpected way. East Side Games is celebrating International Friendship Day by creating a limited-time crossover event between its two games, Star Trek: Lower Decks – The Badgey Directive Mobile Game and Doctor Who: Lost in Time. That crossover begins August 1 and has a fun trailer, but here’s a blunt truth: this crossover is destined for disaster because both of these games are seriously terrible.
Before we dive into the problems of these two games, we should discuss the inevitable crossover between Star Trek and Doctor Who. The Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies wanted to do a crossover with Star Trek: Enterprise back in the day, and as far as he’s concerned, it would have happened if not for the adventures of Captain Archer getting canceled after season 4. Now that Davies is showrunner again, his recent episode “Space Babies” had the Doctor make an excited (and exciting) statement about Star Trek: “We’ve got to visit them one day!”
Eventually, your only way to really progress through the game is to spend real money or watch some of the world’s most intrusive advertisements.
While there have been comics joining these universes before, this recent plea from the Doctor to join the universes of Star Trek and Doctor Who had fans hoping for an onscreen crossover. Now, in a monkey’s paw twist, that crossover is happening on a screen alright…a phone screen. The cross-game event from East Side Games will bring Doctor Who characters like the 10th Doctor and River Song face-to-face with Star Trek: Lower Decks characters like Boimler and Mariner.
The idea for a multi-game crossover event is neat on (psychic) paper and the characters are charming enough, so why do I think this Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover is a Dalek-sized disaster waiting to happen? Because, simply put, the core games involved are extraordinarily boring. And adding a few cute cut-scenes into a limited-time event won’t fix the core issues with the game-play.
While there have been comics joining these universes before, this recent plea from the Doctor to join the universes of Star Trek and Doctor Who had fans hoping for an onscreen crossover.
As an example of boring design, Star Trek: Lower Decks-The Badgey Directive Mobile Game is just an “idle” game…one of those ones where you come back after a few hours to use resources you have gathered and try to move up the levels. Eventually, your only way to really progress through the game is to spend real money or watch some of the world’s most intrusive advertisements.
Doctor Who: Lost in Time doesn’t fare much better: while there are a few distinctions, it plays exactly the same way…an idle game that will drain your phone battery quicker than you can say “exterminate.” It’s another title, too, where you eventually have to throw real cash out or watch awful ads in order to level up. Speaking of ads, no Sonic Screwdriver is powerful enough to keep you from accidentally clicking on the occasional annoying pop-up.
Adding a few cute cut-scenes into a limited-time event won’t fix the core issues with the game-play.
I’m a huge fan of Star Trek and Doctor Who as well as a lifelong gamer…on paper, I’m the exact demographic that should be getting very excited for this quirky crossover. But having played the games in question, I can definitively say they aren’t even games so much as the occasional cut-scene sandwiched between a boring side job and a bunch of annoying ads. If this crossover just means more sitting through commercials to get a bit of story, then I’m happy to hold out until Doctor Who has its inevitable crossover with Strange New Worlds.
