YoIt’s spring 1977 and George Lucas is petrified. He’s just finished work on his third feature, Star Wars, and retreats to Hawaii, unable to cope with the early criticism. But while fretting at a five-star resort, Lucas stumbles upon another Hollywood hideaway: Steven Spielberg. As they build sandcastles together in the Maui sun, Lucas pitches Spielberg a story that harkens back to the simpler era of 1950s serials, an action-packed spectacle about a James Bond-style archaeologist. The name of this crypt-raiding Casanova? Indiana… Smith.
The hero’s moniker certainly benefited from some tweaking, and the action-packed Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) grossed $354 million at the box office. However, as big as Indiana Jones’ influence has been on film, it may have been even bigger on video games. He inspired the tomb-raiding antics of Lara Croft and Uncharted’s wisecracking Nathan Drake. There have also been games starring Indiana Jones himself, notably the brilliant LucasArts point-and-click adventures of the early ’90s, but it’s been decades since the last interactive Indiana Jones adventure that wasn’t made out of Lego. This December, you’ll finally get another chance to play with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, from the studio behind Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, in a game that actually looks like the movies.
A year after the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark, we find our hat-loving hero licking his wounds after breaking up with his fiancée, Marion Ravenwood. When an artifact is stolen from the university at which Jones teaches, Indy soon discovers that a large circle connects this lost artifact to the most spiritually significant sites in the world. Jones sets out to discover what links the places before rival archaeologist Emmerich Voss can plunder them for the Third Reich. A standard break-up story, really.
“Working on this game… has been a childhood dream,” Great Circle design director Jens Andersson smiles. “It’s one of those[properties]that you think you’ll never get the chance to work on.”
It’s a typically globetrotting story, with Indy starting out in Connecticut in 1937 before sneaking into the Vatican, exploring Shanghai, climbing the Himalayas and touring the temples of Sukhothai in Thailand.
“The most important thing about this project was to make it feel like Indiana Jones,” says creative director Axel Torvenius. “For us, Raiders is the most iconic representation of Indiana Jones, the one the world first came to love. So it felt natural to keep him as our main reference.”
Working closely with Lucasfilm, Axel and the team at MachineGames were given access to a wealth of never-before-seen material. “We’ve had weekly meetings with Lucasfilm,” Torvenius says. “From audio to design, narrative, art… they’ve been an invaluable resource. They’re the experts on Indiana Jones and everything that goes with it. We even got access to their archive… very old and rare material, early concept art from Raiders, rare set photos.”
I could see the results of that painstaking research by watching a short section of the game, which featured Indy leaping over chasms, navigating ancient crypts by torchlight, and dodging deadly traps. The Great Circle feels as comfortingly Indy as the quips that accompany every Nazi headbutt, except you see the action through the hero’s eyes. “We want to create the feeling of not just playing Indiana Jones, but be “Indiana Jones,” Andersson explains.
The main quest in The Great Circle will, of course, be a linear, cinematic story, but there are also open areas that players can explore at their own pace. As Indy wandered through a bustling Middle Eastern bazaar, a plethora of people and distractions beckoned to him. If you seek out side quests and take the time to explore, you’ll earn Adventure Points that allow players to unlock new abilities of their choosing. Some of these optional moments are reminiscent of old LucasArts adventure games, in that they’re designed to test your puzzle-solving skills. “Maybe you’ll stumble upon a mystery around the corner – you’re encouraged to solve it, and you get rewards for it,” Andersson says, “and these puzzles and optional quests can be even more difficult.”
Unlike MachineGames’ Wolfenstein games, where you gleefully pepper Nazis with lead, here Indy must camouflage his way through, dressing up in Nazi uniforms or playing a burglar. “We have this escalation-based idea of how to approach scenarios,” Andersson says. “If stealth fails, that’s where melee comes in, or you can use the whip to disarm people. If everything goes to hell and guns start firing, you can pull out your revolver, but that’s very, very high risk.”
If 2023’s disappointing Dial of Destiny taught us anything, it’s that a disturbing digital version of Harrison Ford can completely take you out of the experience. While some odd-looking Indy faces were shown in gameplay footage back in June, the most recent images I’m shown already suggest a much-improved virtual Harrison Ford.
“As you can see from the renders, we’re hitting a really good visual level,” Andersson agrees. Unlike Dial of Destiny’s beat-up Ford, MachineGames’ Indiana Jones is brought to life by the voice of The Last of Us’ Joel, Troy Baker.
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“We were impressed from the start with Troy’s performance,” says Torvenius. “When I heard the first test lines coming from Troy, I thought they were the original references, but it turned out they were Troy!
There’s another video game veteran who’s hard at work whipping the Great Circle into shape: Fallout and Skyrim boss Todd Howard. Lucas originally penned the idea for Indiana Smith back in 1973, and it took seven years to make his morning homage a reality. For Howard, a huge Indy fan (who named his first dog after the films), it’s taken even longer: He pitched his dream Indy game to Lucasfilm in 2009, eventually entrusting it to MachineGames after they gave him the green light. Howard and MachineGames have also been in touch throughout development with Lucas and Spielberg. “They’ve been constantly involved,” Andersson says, smiling. “We’ve provided them with regular production updates throughout the project.”
Where Lucas and Spielberg built sand castles, Howard and MachineGames build virtual sandboxes. The Great Circle has certainly been a labor of love.
“I think what will surprise people is how authentic it is,” Torvenius says. “We’re very happy with where we are now. If you’re an Indiana Jones fan, this will be your solution.”
This interview was conducted at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. The author’s travel and accommodation expenses were covered by Gamescom.
