At yesterday’s Xbox Developer Direct, MachineGames finally unveiled Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and announced that it’ll be releasing later this year exclusively on Xbox Series X|S and PC.
The showcase during the Developer Direct gave us a hearty look at the highly-anticipated Xbox exclusive, revealing details about the plot and characters, some of the locations we’ll be going to, and different aspects of the gameplay. First and foremost, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a single-player action adventure game, though it’ll be using a first-person perspective. Some people may have been expecting it to be a third-person game, but the reason MachineGames chose the more intimate perspective comes down to the team wanting players to really feel like they’re Indiana Jones.
“Our game is about putting you in the shoes of an iconic hero,” says Design Director Jens Andersson. “Since we are doing this mostly in first-person, you have the chance to truly become Indy. First-person makes you part of this world – allowing you to explore and experience things more intimately.”
While this may seem a bit jarring at first, seeing it in action for combat and exploration proves that it’s a great decision on an immersion level. Speaking of combat, Indy’s fists, revolver, and enemy guns will all be at your disposal, but what’s more exciting is the fact that we’ll be able to use his trademark whip in a number of different ways too. Tripping enemies, disarming them, and stunning them are some of the ways that MachineGames showed the whip can be used in combat, which has me excited to try it out myself.
As exciting as combat can be, the team stressed that levels will provide multiple different ways to go about them. If you want to take a more stealthy approach, that’s totally acceptable. You can toss items at enemies to incapacitate them, and you can use your whip to either distract enemies or pull them down while they’re patrolling an area.
It wouldn’t be an Indiana Jones adventure if he wasn’t putting his mind to work to cleverly solve puzzles in tombs and ruins, so of course they’re going to be present in The Great Circle. There’ll be a fair amount that you encounter throughout the main story, but the team explained that the majority of the puzzles will be optional for those players who want to explore off the beaten path.
Although the game is largely in first-person, the perspective will change for cutscenes and for certain instances of environmental traversal such as using a zipline or climbing up a wall. When we do get to see Indy’s face, it’ll still be the classic face of the legend himself, Harrison Ford. While his likeness is being used for The Great Circle, Indiana Jones is being played by Troy Baker. Just going by the footage in the trailer, Baker is doing an almost identical vocal impression of Harrison Ford too, so it’ll truly feel like the Indy that fans know and love is here.
Taking place in 1937 between Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle finds the iconic hero thrust into yet another adventure after he discovers that a particular artifact has been stolen. The Nazis return once again, with the villain this time around being a man named Emmerich Voss, a man that’s “obsessed with the human mind and manipulating it” according to Creative Director Axel Torvenius. As per usual, Indy won’t be alone on this journey. He’s joined by an investigative reporter named Gina who’s trying to solve the mystery at the heart of the story for personal reasons.
The Indiana Jones series is known for taking viewers on a globe-trotting adventure, and it appears as if The Great Circle will be no different, with the Vatican, Egypt, Sukhothai, and the Himalayas being some of the locations that the story will take us. It’s also known for having some exciting set pieces, so if the fighter plane or blimp sequences that were teased in the trailer are any indication, they certainly won’t disappoint.
In the three years since it was first announced that MachineGames would be making an Indiana Jones game, we’ve long wondered what it would look like. With this first deep dive behind us, it’s safe to say that the team is absolutely nailing it. From the visuals and gameplay to the story and tone, everything about Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is checking all the right boxes to revive the nostalgia that I have for the franchise and send it flying up near the top of my most anticipated list for 2024.
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