Look, I get it. Even at the height of Quantum Leap’s popularity three decades ago, turning an anthology TV series into a video game would have been a hard sell. This was a show that bravely hit the reset button every single week. In a flurry of electric blue flashes, time-travelling scientist Samuel Beckett would zap into a new body with the laudable but rather vague mission to “put right what once went wrong”. Even with the probability analytics of his hologram guardian angel Al, it tended to be a painful process of trial and error. Sam would style it out while trying to deduce the win conditions that would allow him to advance. One week a blind concert pianist, the next a convict on death row. Such was the life of a cosmic samaritan.
Yet the more I think about Quantum Leap – and all five soul-nourishing seasons are, at time of writing, available to stream on Now – the more I reckon it would make for a tremendous gaming chassis. The concept of “leaping” into other people has gradually become a familiar trope, from the creepy sight jacking of Forbidden Siren to the vehicular hopscotch of Driver: San Francisco. Titles as varied as Dishonored, Beyond: Two Souls and Superhot all allow you to borrow a passer-by to achieve your next objective, while Watch Dogs: Legion made recruiting an army of remote-controlled London meatbags its main selling point.
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