It looks like we can look forward to a new era of Indiana Jones video games.
Daniel Richtman AKA DanielRPK shared this small hint on Twitter:
“Looks like we’re getting more Indy games”
This comes after Indiana Jones and The Great Circle, by MachineGames and Lucasfilm Games, launched to resounding critical reception. As many reviewers would say, one could pretend that the last two Indiana Jones movies did not exist, and take this as the real next sequel in the original trilogy.
Now, we don’t want to kick the wind out of Daniel’s sails, but Lucasfilm Games themselves shared a statement on this question themselves. In an interview with Variety on the same day as its launch, Lucasfilm Games vice president and general manager Douglas Reilly had this to say:
“Right now, we’re focused on getting this one to the public and getting to the DLC and making this as successful as we can.
I think we’re always looking for great stories. And the good news is, there’s a lot of space in between the films where we could tell more and more Indiana Jones stories that I think would be super interesting.”
Reilly is alluding to the fact that Indiana Jones and The Great Circle is set in between the events of 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark and 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In fact (spoiler in paragraph below);
The start of Indiana Jones and The Great Circle recreated the epic opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark, partly as a form of fanservice, but also clearly to help set the mood.
Now what’s interesting about all of this is that MachineGames’ title is connected closely to the movie continuity, but its actually part of a more innovative and exciting part of the Indiana Jones video game franchise.
Star Wars may have a bigger spotlight in the video game world compared to its sibling, but Indiana Jones has a rich video game history as well. This dates all the way back to 1982, when the first such game, a Raiders of the Lost Ark tie in, released for the Atari 2600.
But what really defines Indiana Jones’ video game legacy is the fact that the games with original stories outnumber those based on the movies by a great deal. A big deal of Indy’s potential as a character was explored in those games for far longer than in the movies.
And Indy was not always a purely action arcade man, or a AAA technical showcase. Indiana Jones and The Great Circle also harkened to the very enjoyable adventure games in the franchise, many made by LucasArts themselves.
We would certainly be very excited for more MachineGames’ Indiana Jones titles, but we hope Disney and LucasArts can see the potential for other studios to make Indiana Jones games as well. After all, Ron Gilbert , who worked on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure, is right there. LucasArts just worked with him and his studio Terrible Toybox to make Return to Monkey Island.
In the meantime, if you are curious about Indiana Jones’ video game history, we’ll share a six hour video you can enjoy for the holidays below.
