MachineGames has shared new details on Indiana Jones and the Great Circle in a new post on Xbox Wire.
Some of this information has been covered before, but in this platform MachineGames took the opportunity to bring it all together. But, we’ll focus on a very interesting comment made by one Jerk Gustafsson, who is the game’s director:
“It’s a little bit different, this game, for us, in many ways. We are very used to having heavy weapons, gun-blazing shooters – and this is a little bit different. We are making a proper adventure game here.”
For fans who didn’t quite know this, MachineGames’ founders came from another veteran FPS studio, Starbreeze. Founded in 2009, they were best known for making the five-game reboot of Wolfenstein, as well as the recent Quake remasters.
So with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, MachineGames is definitely going out of their comfort zone, but Bethesda put all the support in place to guarantee their success as much as possible.
We do know that the theory around the game didn’t come from MachineGames itself, but from Bethesda head Todd Howard. Gustaffson explains Howard’s idea, now used in this game:
“The story kicks off when an ancient relic is stolen from the college where Indiana Jones works. He’s determined to track down the thief, and he stumbles into this ancient conspiracy involving the theory of the Great Circle, as we call it.
The Great Circle is a strange alignment of ancient sites around the globe, and a set of mysterious artifacts connect to it. But Indy isn’t the only one in search of answers. The enemy are scouring the world for these artifacts, believing that they hold some kind of power – and to stop them there’s only one thing he can do, and that is to find the artifacts first.”
Of course, the way Indy finds artifacts doesn’t involve a ten year research commission, secured with the cooperation of local governments and requiring years of meticulous documentation. We’re well used to Indy chasing Nazis around the world, and rushing to grab artifacts before they do.
The latest trailer already showed us that MachineGames wants players to choose if Indy will go in guns blazing, OOC, or if he’ll go sneaking around, like Steven Spielberg wrote him, or if he’ll jump into fistfights, like George Lucas wrote him. But Gustaffson shared more insight into how they wanted to characterize Indy:
“He is flawed, he makes mistakes, he stumbles, there is weight to his movement, and we have this gritty, pulpy edge to the action. But at the same time he’s also rather athletic, he’s an excellent fighter, and he also has an enormous amount of luck as well – and at the same time he’s the best archaeologist in the world.
So focusing on all of these things, in a way it makes the game feel in line with these classic matinee action-adventures that the movies were celebrating, something I think Indy himself also personifies in a way.”
It certainly sounds like MachineGames leaned on their source material, which they were given extensive access to, instead of looking too closely at how Drake or Lara works things out. We are certainly looking forward to playing a video game version of an Indy movie soon.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will be releasing in 2024 on Windows via Steam and Xbox Series X|S. It will be Day one on Game Pass, but in spite of rumors, it has not been announced or confirmed for PlayStation 5.
