This article is sponsored by Hachette Partworks.
Doctor Who is one of the most enduring science fiction franchises in modern history, with its main television series alone running (with several notable lapses) since 1963. One under-appreciated side of the franchise, however, is its foray into video games. Doctor Who has been a part of the gaming space since 1983, with the franchise’s first official game, the aptly titled Doctor Who: The First Adventure, published for the BBC Micro, an early personal computer commissioned by the BBC as its name suggests. This gave the British sci-fi franchise another frontier to explore and leave its mark in, along with television and merchandising, including its most iconic recurring enemy, the Daleks.
The Daleks have had an interesting place in Doctor Who video game history as they have had in the wider franchise itself. 1985’s PC game Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror featured enemies that heavily resembled Daleks but weren’t referred to by name, as the rights to the extraterrestrial exterminators were partially owned by their creator Terry Nation at the time, which would’ve complicated the licensing deal. It wasn’t until the 1992 PC game Dalek Attack that the Doctor’s formidable foes would officially make their video game debut, menacing several different incarnations of the Doctor over the course of the game.
When it comes to Daleks, Hachette Partworks has one of the most impressive models around, available through a subscription service from the company. The model is based on how the Daleks appeared in the Time War, the pivotal conflict that placed the Doctor and his fellow Time Lords in a battle for the fate of space and time against the nefarious enemies, resulting in the Time Lords nearly being wiped out for good. The subscription service has components shipped regularly, along with a magazine to not only help fans assemble the detailed model but with plenty of interesting info about Doctor Who at large.
