Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality Review - Upgrade Failed (PS4)

Editor’s Note: The developers have reached out to us with some clarifications regarding post-release patches that may have fixed some of the issues our reviewer ran into. Please see the notes at the bottom of this review for additional details.

Whovians don’t get a whole lot of video game adaptions. So when what few games do come our way, we flock to the opportunity to be one of those illustrious Companions no matter how brief our time is. Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality features the Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) with some timey wimey aid from the Tenth (David Tennant, a personal favorite of mine). The game touts classic Doctor Who villains and a world-saving first person adventure. How could a Whovian like myself pass up the opportunity to live out this fantasy?

Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality first appeared as a VR experience called The Edge of Time. It promised a brief three-ish hours aiding the Doctor in their fight against the Reality Virus, now repackaged for non-VR players to experience. Daleks, Cybermen, and Weeping Angels all make appearances. I love these baddies (Handles is the best Cyberman ever, fight me) which makes what I am about to say about this version heartbreaking.

It is not good.

Doctor Who The Edge of Reality PS4 review — At least this part gave me a good chuckle

Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality – Second Verse, Worse Than the First

For starters, The Edge of Reality opens with me in a laundromat. I presume I’m supposed to tend to my laundry, so I pick up a basket and try to switch the load over to the dryer. That does nothing. There are no audio or visual cues for me to go off. I try interacting with things. Machine doors will glow white if I can interact with them but all I can do is open/close. Now I’m randomly mashing square on everything. I try both doors, the notices and photos, still nothing. That’s when I finally notice a speaker just below the board that I can interact with and the Doctor speaks to me. The room now has black ooze dripping from the walls of machines. The background audio drowns out whatever the Doctor is saying to me (I assume via the TV but there’s nothing on the screen) and thanks to my decades of gaming, I instinctively know I can go through the manager’s door now.

The next room requires finding clues to open the safe and retrieve Thirteenth’s sonic screwdriver. One was fairly easy to locate but for some reason I wasn’t finding the other half of the code. A video walkthrough showed me where that clue was in the VR version. For some bizarre reason the item with the clue was changed for this version but not the number itself. Even once I had unlocked the safe and collected the sonic, Thirteen kept cycling through the same two audio clips about finding the code and what her (then current) companions were up to.

Doctor Who The Edge of Reality PS4 review

In the VR version of the game, I should have walked outside and immediately encountered a radio. Not here. Stumbling my way without any guidance past some surveillance Daleks, I moved a bus. Eventually I wandered within range of a radio that I couldn’t find. The game is so incredibly dark that I wasted ten minutes trying to get through the shipping container maze. That was the end of my first session. I decided after a night of decent sleep to try again. With a new game, I repeated most of those steps. This time I found where the second clue had moved to before unlocking the safe. Same audio issues with cycling clips and bad mixing that is a trademark of the television program. I retraced my prior path, located the radio, and cobbled together the transmitter to summon the TARDIS.

The straw that broke my back was trying to interact with the TARDIS control panel. Almost every single time I centered my reticle to focus on the switch or button I wanted to push, said switch or button would not highlight. This made attempting timed puzzles impossible to do. My love of Doctor Who could not compel me to play another minute of this game. It feels like an extremely lazy conversion from VR to console game. It’s sloppy, frustrating, and for three hours of this mess, not worth the download in its current state.

Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality review code provided by publisher. Version 1.07 reviewed on a PlayStation 5. For more information please see our Review Policy.

EDITOR’S NOTE – REGARDING ISSUES WE FACED IN OUR REVIEW

While we will not be changing or reissuing our review, we wanted to make note of comments from the developers about the issues that we ran into.

The developers noted that multiple post-launch patches have been released to fix the issues that we encountered, including a later Version 1.08 patch that we hadn’t tested by the time our review published. The following is a list of patch notes that came after we had published our review. They also stated that a new brightness option can help mitigate darker scenes, and that dialog in the Launderette portion (and throughout the game) should guide players on what to do next.

Post-Review Patch Notes

Patch 5 (November 4)

– Fixed translation errors in Chinese
– Changed the buzzer in Launderette to flash whilst waiting to be answered
– Fixed an issue where players could become stuck after gravity is initially disabled on Lucia Minor
– Fixed an issue where the crane key, and red and black cables would be returned to the inventory after dying to the Dalek in Scrapyard
– Fixed an issue in the Launderette where the door could be opened by pressing the Sonic Screwdriver button rather than holding it
– Fixed an issue where the player would be returned to the wrong checkpoint in the shooter section of Metebelis IV
– Fixed an animation issue on a door on Lucia Minor
– Fixed an issue in the confrontation with The First where subtitles could become stuck
– Fixed an issue where players could become stuck behind a console on the bridge of Lucia Minor

Patch 6 (November 12)

– Fixed an issue that caused screens to not display videos correctly
– Fixed an issue where players may become temporarily unable to use the Sonic Screwdriver
– Optimization on Victorian London
– Locked player movement during time glitches on Victorian London
– Moved the starting position of the player on Lucia Minor and Victorian London
– Camera sensitivity settings now effect object inspection
– Fixed an issue that could occur when attempting to quit to the main menu when loading into another level
– Prevented player movement after being killed
– Fixed an issue where the camera would return to the player perspective for a moment after being caught by any Cybermen
– The alternative Sonic Screwdrivers will now display the correct colours when used
– Fixed an issue where the back of the TARDIS was not displaying correctly
– Optimization on Lucia Minor
– Fixed an issue where players could be caught by Cybermen during a cutscene
– Added player footstep sounds
– Fixed an issue where the volume would reset after a time glitch or returning to the main menu
– Fixed an issue where the player could back out of certain interactive objects whilst maintaining the interaction
– Fixed an issue where Emer would continue to prompt the player to pick up the torch in Lucia Minor after picking up the torch
– Increased the delay between hint repetitions for the hint in the office
– Fixed an issue where players could walk backwards into Angels with no consequences

Additionally, there were four patches prior to our review that may mitigate some of the issues our reviewer encountered. If you do decide to play Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality, make sure your game is up to date in order to have the best experience possible.