Despite a handful of games on the Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2, and the like, Scooby-Doo has never truly broken into the video game sphere with any real impact. It's a brand that is beloved by many and is seeing new revisions all the time, but never in gaming, which is a shame given the obvious potential it has to craft and re-craft great stories and characters. HBO's Velma has become the internet's newest punching bag by making some major changes to the formula that haven't stuck the landing. Fans looking for something more conventional shouldn't be isolated just to TV, however, as gaming (and not just MultiVersus) can offer it a lot.
LEGO boasts a pretty clean gaming resume with plenty of products that do a good job of adapting pre-existing IPs. Taking on a litany of beloved characters, settings, and tales and handling them with the utmost respect is hard. With such a lofty reputation comes an eagerness from fans to adapt their favorite properties. Scooby-Doo is absolutely one of them, and the landscape of gaming as well as the franchise's absence on the medium means a new title is long overdue. LEGO should be the vessel to bring Mystery Incorporated to consoles and PC, as it has yet to falter in any substantial way.
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?
While other cartoon franchises like The Simpsons, Rick and Morty, and South Park have enjoyed some successful video game outings, Scooby-Doo's potential is largely unrealized. Some forgettable titles on old hardware are simply not indicative of what Scooby-Doo can offer gamers, as the investigative angle and lovable characters are ripe for more stories to be told. The biggest mystery that surrounds Scooby-Doo in the games space is that of its prolonged absence, and that has to be solved soon.
Thematically, it's not a stretch to assume that a modern Scooby-Doo game would find an audience, given that the cartoon has a similar tone and comedy style to that of Luigi's Mansion. That franchise is revered even among Nintendo's expansive first-party catalog, and three titles have released over the last two decades that each develop on the last. Scooby-Doo has the luxury of having more than one character with unique personalities and abilities on the case, which can work in the favor of a potential LEGO game where multiplayer is of paramount importance.
LEGO Adapts Pre-Existing Franchises Wonderfully
While LEGO City Undercover is a fantastic offering that doesn't lean on any IP other than LEGO itself, Traveller's Tales is most known for adapting, reimagining, and remodeling fictional properties. It makes fun, family-friendly, and cooperative video games that strike the perfect balance between mindless fun and head-scratching challenge. From Lord of the Rings to The Avengers, LEGO has been the go-to for fictional properties if they want to enter the gaming space without the stress of forging a game all their own.
There are small differences between each LEGO game, but most are easy to pick up and play depending on which license the game is adapting. Save for LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which alters the gameplay in the most significant way, the franchise is one of the most consistent in gaming, and it's yet to get stale. It's hard to say if a brand-new, AAA Scooby-Doo game would be a hit, so building one from the ground up is a risky venture. The best way for the Warner Bros-owned franchise to give Scooby-Doo another shot in the gaming space would be to lean on the exploits of Traveller's Tales and its LEGO games, as the studio don't seem to miss.