Doctor Who is coming to Fortnite but is it a crossover worth doing?

A Fortnite rumor has Doctor Who coming to the game this year.

Fortnite is over-indulging in its love of crossovers. The game developers over at Fortnite and at Epic Games have made crossovers the primary revenue generator for the brand, and for games like Fall Guys. Fall Guys just brought in Star Trek, including Spock himself, into the game for players to get, so it’s not surprising at all that Fornite landed Doctor Who.

Doctor Who is a long-running British science fiction series that sees an alien time travel, die often, and regenerate as a new version of the character. This new version is played by a new actor and usually comes in right when the previous actor is asking for too much mon…err…I mean when the show needs to feel “fresh” again.

The show has been around longer than Star Trek even, and Star Trek launched in 1966, so you can understand just how popular this series is. It’s lasted nearly 60 full years. So when one data leaker named FNBRintel revealed (via Fortnite News) that Fortnite was in talks of doing a Doctor Who crossover, it got the internet buzzing.

But how buzzy did the internet get?

The Doctor Who crossover won’t have the same impact it would’ve had a few years ago

I’m not a Doctor Who fan, and I can’t speak for how popular the show was in its original run. After it was brought back in 2005 after a nearly 20-year layoff, the series found itself running at a fever pitch. None more evident than when the show brought in David Tennant and Matt Smith. That was when Doctor Who was at its peak in popularity; at least in modern times.

The show was arguably the most popular science fiction series in the mid-aughts and was easily one of the most talked about shows on Twitter and Tumblr during that time. You know, when people still used Tumblr.

The show started to lose its grip on the pop culture zeitgeist when Peter Capaldi came in as the 12th Doctor. Then the franchise bottomed out with Jodie Whittaker taking the reigns. The series is readying itself for Ncuti Gatwa to take over as The Doctor but it appears as though the recent run of success is pretty much over for the brand.

It may not be nearing cancellation but it has safely fallen into The Simpsons realm of shows, a show that may not be canceled but is no longer as popular as it once was.