Indiana Jones and the Great Circle made a big appearance at Xbox Games Showcase 2024 last weekend, showing off new gameplay, revealing new story elements, and treating us to an extended scene set in the Himalayas, as Indiana and his new partner Gina try to recover a relic while avoiding the clutches of Colonel Viktor Gantz.
In a special episode of the Official Xbox Podcast, host Malik Prince talked more about the trailer and the game in general, along with MachineGames Game Director Jerk Gustafsson and Production Director John Jennings. If you want to see the full interview, check it out below or read on for new details.
Indiana Jones and the Great CircleDevelopment is in full swing and what we've seen of the game promises an authentic Indiana Jones adventure, both in story and gameplay.
“The story begins when an ancient relic is stolen from the university where Indiana Jones works,” Gustafsson explained. “He is determined to track down the thief and stumbles upon this ancient conspiracy involving the Great Circle theory, as we call it. The Great Circle is a strange alignment of ancient sites around the world, and a set of mysterious artifacts connect to it. But Indy isn't the only one looking for answers. The enemy is scouring the world looking for these artifacts, believing that they have some kind of power, and to stop them there is only one thing he can do, and that is to find the artifacts first.”
This starts us off on a classic globe-trotting adventure, beginning in the halls of Indy's beloved Marshall College, before touring the Himalayas, the ancient jungle sites of Sukhothai in Thailand, the Vatican (a brand new location for an Indiana Jones project), , the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt and more. It's the kind of setup one would expect from an Indiana Jones story, but it came from a perhaps unexpected source:
“It actually started with an idea from (Bethesda Game Studios director and executive producer) Todd Howard,” Gustafsson said. “I had been thinking for years about creating a story around the concept of the Great Circle, so when we had this opportunity to work on an Indiana Jones game, we felt it was the perfect fit.”
Of course, that idea was just the starting point, and the team at MachineGames has worked incredibly closely with Lucasfilm Games to ensure that their original adventure is faithful to the accompanying films.
“We spent countless hours re-watching the movies, especially the two movies closest to the game, which are Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade,” Gustafsson said. “Also, we have one of the best resources through our partnership with Lucasfilm Games, and working alongside them on this project has been invaluable, just this cave of knowledge about the character, which has been fantastic.”
“It's been great to have access to writers, Lucasfilm art directors, people who have worked with the Indiana Jones property for decades,” Jennings continued. “Having your opinion, I mean, some of these people know all “That's been written about Indy before, and having them bounce ideas off each other and get their own input has been hugely invaluable.”
That partnership also brought benefits for the team's fans: “We also managed to get access to some of the Lucasfilm archives,” Jennings said, “which for Indy fans has been an absolute dream come true, to have access to some of these things that maybe not many people have seen.”
The investigation has been deep. The writers and artists on the team studied not only the movies, but also the comics and books, not to mention creating recreations of Indy's suit, including his iconic fedora, reproduced by the same milliner who created the original for The Search for the Devil. lost ark On the musical side, long-time Lucasfilm Games collaborator Gordy Haab (who recently won a Grammy for his work on the Star Wars Jedi: Survivor soundtrack) has been incorporated to create a score that John Williams would be proud of.
That authenticity also extends to the characters involved. While most of the cast will be new faces to the franchise, the latest trailer showed us more of Indy's friend Marcus Brody: “Because we started the story at Marshall College, it made sense to have Marcus there, to sort of ground it. in the familiarity of the Indy base,” said Gustafsson, before teasing that we will also see cameos from other classic characters along the way.
Of course, the most important element for authenticity was getting Indy himself right, and the team found a perfect partner in renowned actor Troy Baker:
“Maybe it was an unexpected choice at first, but from the moment we saw his audition tape we were totally sold,” Jennings said. “He's just a great actor. He has also put a lot of effort into the role; You can tell he's a big, big fan of Indiana Jones (…) We were recently in a (voice-over) session with him and he was improvising lines. You know, 'Wouldn't Indy say it a little more like that?' Or comment on lines we wrote that we thought were subtle Easter eggs just for die-hard Indy fans, and he'll pick up on it right away.”
Baker's performance doesn't just extend to a great Harrison Ford impression, either. “He's not just a voice actor, he's everything,” Jennings continued. “We captured the entire performance: the body, the face and the voice, all recorded at the same time. And he also has the physical performance defined. He does a very, very good job of capturing the character of Indy, specifically the character of him in the early films, the earlier ones, which is where, of course, our game takes place. He just does it perfectly.”
This has been a new type of development process for MachineGames and extends to the game itself. “This game is a little different for us in many ways,” Gustafsson said. “We are very used to having heavy weapons and shooters, and this is a little different. “We’re making a proper adventure game here.”
While the team's acclaimed Wolfenstein games were brutal, fast-paced shooters, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle offers an experience more typical of the most famous archaeologist in the world.
“You solve problems with your mind first and really rely on intelligence, and not this excessive combat that we've seen or done before with the Wolfenstein games,” Gustafsson explained. “When playing the game, choosing the more authentic and stealthy Indy route, or just a classic fistfight, will be a benefit to the player most of the time, and will also be a very fun and challenging experience.”
When playing as Indy, we don't lay waste to the world, but rather stop to solve puzzles and try to avoid conflict when we can. The team wanted to avoid turning the character we know into a superhero.
“He's flawed, he makes mistakes, he stumbles, there's weight to his movements and we have that rough, pulpy feel to the action,” Gustafsson continued. “But at the same time he is quite athletic, he is an excellent fighter and he is also very lucky, and at the same time he is the best archaeologist in the world. So focusing on all of these things kind of makes the game feel in line with these classic matinee action adventures that the movies celebrated, something that I think Indy himself also embodies in some ways.”
To achieve this, the game will be played primarily in first-person, a perspective that MachineGames is very familiar with, a key way to help players feel like they are really walking in your shoes, and an exciting point of difference when looking. the broader action-adventure genre as a whole. In key moments, however, we will see the character in the third person, letting us experience those filmic moments from the outside.
And speaking of cinematic moments, the trailer ended with a callback to perhaps one of the most famous sequences in film history: Indy's escape over a rock. We had to wonder how that got into the game and if we'll be able to play it. But Gustafsson wanted to keep some mystery before Indiana Jones and the Great Circle arrives:
“Unfortunately, that's one of those things where I just have to say, 'You'll just have to wait and see.'”
Play Indiana Jones and the Great Circle day one on Game Pass when it launches later this year on Xbox Series X|S and PC.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Bethesda Softworks
Uncover one of history's greatest mysteries in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle™, a first-person single-player adventure set between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark™ and The Last Crusade™. The year is 1937, sinister forces are sweeping the world in search of the secret of an ancient power connected to the Great Circle, and only one person can stop them: Indiana Jones™. You'll become the legendary archaeologist in this cinematic action-adventure game from MachineGames, the award-winning studio behind the recent Wolfenstein series and produced by Hall of Fame game designer Todd Howard. YOU ARE INDIANA JONES Go on adventure as Indy in an exciting story full of exploration, immersive action and intriguing puzzles. As a brilliant archaeologist, renowned for his keen intellect, sly wit and trademark humor, you will travel the world in a race against enemy forces to uncover the secrets of one of the greatest mysteries of all time. A WORLD OF MYSTERY AWAITS YOU Travel from the halls of Marshall College to the heart of the Vatican, the pyramids of Egypt, the sunken temples of Sukhothai and beyond. When a robbery in the dead of night ends in a confrontation with a mysterious colossal man, you must set out to uncover the momentous secret behind the theft of a seemingly unimportant artifact. Forging new alliances and facing familiar enemies, you'll face intriguing characters, use cunning and wit to solve ancient puzzles, and survive intense scenarios. QUICK WHIP ACTION Indiana's signature whip remains at the heart of his team and can be used to distract, disarm and attack enemies. But the whip isn't just a weapon, it's Indy's most valuable tool for navigating the environment. Jump over unsuspecting patrols and scale walls as you make your way through a surprising world. Combine stealth infiltration, hand-to-hand combat and gunfights to combat the enemy threat and unravel the mystery. THE SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY Adventure through a dynamic combination of linear gameplay, narrative, and open area maps. Unleash your inner explorer and discover a world of fascinating secrets, deadly traps and diabolical riddles, where anything could hide the next piece of the mystery: or the snakes. Why did they have to be snakes?
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