In his original conception of the show's anniversary special, Moffat had written the Ninth Doctor as having ended the Time War.

[7][8] In "The Name of the Doctor", Hurt wore a burgundy and ivory herringbone scarf and a bone white pinstripe shirt.

[2] He kept it in a bandolier originally worn by Cass, played by Emma Campbell-Jones, a young pilot and engineer who dies after refusing the Doctor's help due to him being a Time Lord.

After the Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann) is killed in a spaceship crash while trying to save an innocent woman, who rejected his efforts because she regards the Time Lords and the Daleks as equally monstrous for the collateral damage inflicted in the war, he is temporarily resurrected by the Sisterhood of Karn (last seen in The Brain of Morbius) and urged to take a stand and join the war.

However, the Moment is sentient, possessing a conscience that requires the user to morally justify his use of it, and interacts with him in the shape of his future companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper).

However, aided by the Moment's interface which shows them a vision of the horror and destruction wrought in the Fall of Arcadia, the last battle in which the War Doctor fought, and Clara's plea to remember the vow they made in taking their name, the Doctors ultimately conclude that the loss of life that would be caused by using the Moment is something they cannot accept.

They instead pool their resources, and with the help of the Doctor's various incarnations, attempt to save Gallifrey by freezing it in a moment in time, creating the illusion of the planet's own destruction.

The War Doctor accepts that upon returning to his own timeframe, he will forget his own heroic actions and must live with the false belief that he killed his own people.

A further prose story titled "The Stranger" was released in 2015 as part of the Heroes and Monsters Collection, while another George Mann story, "Decoy", appears in the 2019 collection Doctor Who The Target Storybook, in which the War Doctor stands up to Rassilon to save General Artarix and a Time Lord fleet from a suicide mission.

[10] This is the War Doctor's second appearance in comics, the incarnation having previously featured in a non-speaking cameo in IDW's Dead Man's Hand.

The War Doctor, along with the other twelve incarnations, appears in the 2015 video game Lego Dimensions, voiced using clips of John Hurt's dialogue from his episodes.

It was announced in October 2015 that John Hurt would reprise his role as the War Doctor for a series of audio plays by Big Finish Productions starting in December of that year.

The range concluded with Casualties of War in February 2017, a month after Hurt's death, and saw the Doctor reunite with Leela (Louise Jameson).

[11] In 2020, Big Finish announced a prequel series — The War Doctor Begins — with actor and impressionist Jonathon Carley taking over the title role.