Summary
Indiana Jones and the Great Circleis perhaps one of the most anticipated games of 2024, letting players step into the shoes of the beloved explorer for the first time in several years. The title is being developed by MachineGames, the studio behind the most recent entries in theWolfensteinfranchise, alongside LucasFilm Games, with publishing by Bethesda Softworks. Though no official date has been announced yet, the PC and Xbox exclusive is slated for release some time in late 2024.
This newIndiana Jones adventure takes placein 1937, set in between the events ofRaiders of the Lost ArkandLast Crusade. It will follow Indy as he investigates the titular Great Circle:a group of mysterious sites scattered around the globe that together form a perfect circle on a map. Though not too much of the gameplay has been revealed just yet, the title will take players around the world as they utilize stealth, combat, and Indy’s trusty whip to solve puzzles and uncover the meaning behind the circular phenomenon.
Indiana Jones And The Great Circle Preview: Indy Like You’ve Never Seen Him Before
Ahead of Gamescom 2024, I attended a virtual preview event for Indiana Jones & The Great Circle and got a better look at its gameplay.
Screen RantinterviewedIndiana Jones and the Great Circle’s Design Director Jens Andersson and Creative Director Axel Torvenius at Gamescom to learn more about the game’s plot, Troy Baker’s role as Indy, and the big undertaking of telling a new story in an already-established universe.
Pushing The Limits Of Adventure With Indiana Jones & The Great Circle
Crafting Bolder Ideas, Tougher Puzzles, & Bigger Adventures For Players
Screen Rant: First I would just love to hear a little bit about how you guys went about approaching a franchise likeIndiana Jonesversus something likeWolfenstein. They’re both beloved IPs, obviously, but did this one come with more or less freedom?
Axel Torvenius: To some extent, there hasn’t been that much of a difference in terms of how we experience the freedom that we’ve got to make the game that we want to make and the game that we love to make. We’ve been having a very close working relationship with Lucasfilm Games.
We’ve been constantly iterating and reiterating design choices, ideas, narrative beats to make sure that they feel that we are in the right path and helping us also understand sometimes what the right path is. They are the expert of the IP, and we are happy to be able to work with it. In the core of it, there hasn’t been a major shift, but obviously working with a licensed IP is something different from working with something that we’ve been doing for three, four games in a row.
But for us,that has been a positive change and a positive challenge. To some extent, very early on, I did reiterate for the team internally the importance of making sure that understanding the existing IP and the existing character is two major things which are good: one, it gives us a framework of what we can do; it also gives us a framework of what we can’t do and that will serve us as a guiding principle very early on in the project. There’s no time trying to explore some ideas that we feel is like, “This is not it. This is not hitting the tone that we want to hit.” Trying to understand that early on and then cement that so we can make the best and the strongest Indiana Jones game we possibly can with the resources we have.
Jens Andersson: I also think there’s a difference in terms of: Indiana Jones is such a massive IP. It’s so well-developed, the movies up there on screen - this is how it looks. Wolfenstein, that was much more to, “What is a modern version of Wolfenstein?” It becomes much more about - we’re massive fans, obviously of Indiana Jones, so what are the parts that we feel work best as a game?
We placed this game in between Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Last Crusade. That’s the time period where we feel this is where we want this game between.It’s about taking all the great stuff that’s there and making that in this big kettle and then develop this story on top, and try to make that into a really great video game.
You’ve got Troy Baker playing Indy. Can you talk a little bit about what that sort of casting process was like and what set his performance apart from all the other Indianas that you heard?
Axel Torvenius: Yeah, absolutely. We reviewed and looked at numerous different candidates, but in the end we landed with Troy. The first time I got to hear his test lines, I didn’t actually understand it was the test lines.I was like, “Yeah, so these are the reference lines. Where is Troy?“And he’s like, “This is Troy.” [Laughs] It’s like, “You’re kidding me!” It was that good. It was very clear to us that this is our man and he’s extremely passionate about the IP. He’s been extremely passionate about this project and he’s been this immensely great person to have had on board. We are very, very grateful for being able to work with him.
What made you choose this specific moment of Indy’s life to explore versus doing something like an outright prequel? Will fans be able to go into the game and uncover more about stuff that’s maybe hinted at in the later films, like stuff that happens with Marion and that sort of thing?
Axel Torvenius: The initial get go is that Todd Howard wanted to do an Indiana Jones game for a very long time. He had this great core idea, the base premise of a strong narrative that he pitched with Lucasfilm Games. They were also excited about it. We were approached by Todd in terms of being a good fit to develop this, and we were extremely honored and happy to be able to be in the position to make it happen.
Part of that is where it also sets which part of the Indiana Jones timeline the game should be in. It was a fairly natural choice from the beginning, and as we see in some of the released footage, there are familiar faces within our game that you could have seen in early movies. That’s all I can say about the similarities. But the importance is to making sure that the tone comes throughm that it feels like we are set in the timeline between those two movies.
Jens Andersson: But there’s, of course,plenty of things from the Indiana Jones universe that we managed to bake into the game for the observant fan. Plenty of stuff like that.
There have been a number ofIndiana Jonesgames over the years, including some really fun point and click puzzler type games and that sort of thing. Were you looking to a lot of those past titles at all in terms of stuff like inspiring the games, puzzling sides or structure, anything of that kind?
Axel Torvenius: In terms of being a structure of reference? Absolutely. You always need to digest and analyze the content that is already existing when you’re trying to craft something new to add to the IP. Obviously, we’ve been looking at previous movies and previous games, but it’s difficult to compare what we’ve been doing to any of the other existing media since we are doing something completely new and quite different. It’s again: seeing the tone, hitting the theme, making sure that it fits within the existing IP.
Jens Andersson: I’m a massive fan of the whole point and click adventures, and we have plenty of people on the team who like those as well, so not so much research needed because we cleared them not too long go. But it’s about: what’s a modern adventure game, what’s the adventure game that we want to make within Indiana Jones?
We want to have puzzles. Point and click games have a certain kind of puzzles, andmaybe it gave us a little bit more confidence to push that, because there was a historic use of Indiana Jones for building these kinds of games. They are lovely. Of course, we need to make them work in our immersive, cinematic, first-person, adventure, so it’s about the ideas they had in there. How can we replicate that in our game? How do we do puzzles? How do we do exploration?
You mentioned perhaps it making you a little bit more confident to take bolder swings with what you are trying. Do you have any sort of examples about that where there was maybe a feature or an element you were thinking of where you really felt like you were sort of swinging for the fences and being more experimental in that regard?
Jens Andersson: I think an easy one to point to are just puzzles. Puzzles in AAA games are usually almost dumbed down. They need to be so accessible so that everyone can play through it, and the way people tend to do that is to dumb them down so it becomes a cinematic click through kind of thing. That’s one of those things we wanted to avoid.
We spent a lot of time trying to develop our puzzles, but also develop the sort of secondary things needed like a robust hint system using the camera, using the journal, sowe can have that while still making sure it is something that’s accessible. It’s a huge part of the Indiana Jones world, we really want to represent that well.
I was just seeing people realizing today online that there’s already subtly been DLC mentioned for the game in the listings of the different editions. Can you comment on that at all?
Axel Torvenius: What we can say at this point: we are extremely focused right now making sure we are in the finishing stretch of making the game done, done, done. Then the future plans - more info will come, but aDLC in 2025, that’s what’s been communicated and that will happen.
Jens Andersson: We can’t say much more than that.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circleis scheduled to release on July 06, 2025 for PC and Xbox Series X/S as a timed exclusive.
