It’s a big year for video games that occupy a chronological space within the arguable peaks of some of George Lucas’ most iconic works. Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws is just on the horizon, for one, but the other big AAA video game venture into the realm of Lucasfilm couldn’t be further in how it adapts its chosen property – and that’s MachineGames’ first-person action adventure, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
With Indy having a starring role at this year’s Gamescom Opening Night Live showcase, I was treated to a peek at this latest look at the game ahead of time, accompanied by commentary from the studio’s Jerk Gustafsson and Axel Torvenius. And after nearly an hour behind-virtual-doors with the two, along with a healthy heaping of game footage, I’m more convinced than ever that MachineGames was the right choice to bring an Indiana Jones video game adventure to life.
The studio always seemed like an odd choice for this property, the fun of shooting at Nazis being maybe the strongest link between the two, but there’s an increasing sense now that MachineGames’ ambitions and abilities lie far beyond what we’ve seen in the recent Wolfenstein games. Straight off the bat, we’re treated to a very familiar situation – Indy has just discovered a mysterious relic in a cavernous, sandy temple and subsequently sets off a deadly trap. Seamlessly switching from a third-person cutscene to an intimate, first-person gameplay viewpoint, it’s a remarkably-effective setup to the fantasy that the team is trying to sell. The tombs, the traps, the tantalising brain-teasers and tense stand-offs – everything that makes an Indiana Jones matinee caper iconic seems to be completely intact here.
Set between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, a decision which we’re told came straight from executive producers, Todd Howard, and is a deliberate attempt to capture the franchise at arguably its highest point, The Great Circle sees Indy, along with investigative reporter Gina Lombardi, roped into a globe-spanning chase after a mysterious force that’s hunting down a series of ancient relics for a sinister plot. Our preview didn’t spend too much time further explaining the logistics of why we’re here, but gave us enough to know we’ll be seeing a huge number of varying locations from the Vatican to the Himalayas in search of hidden crypts and faces new and old.
Moreso, our sessions focused on what MachineGames is doing to ensure players feel like they’re Indiana Jones, authentically, while still imparting on the game its own stamp and style. Perhaps the most surprising thing, for me, was learning that the split between action and adventure in this game is so weighted toward the latter that the team actually considered giving it the genre moniker of “adventure-action” or even “MachineGames-adventure.”
To that end, a vast majority of the gameplay we saw featured everything other than the shooting and in-your-face action you’d normally associate with the studio’s output, instead looking deeply at more cerebral gameplay pursuits. Two big, key ingredients in this recipe are Indiana’s journal and camera, which serve more than cosmetic function in this game and are crucial tools in the daring archaeologist’s belt. This is a game where players will be encouraged to really pay attention to their surroundings, whether that’s snooping through an enemy base or trying to solve cryptic riddles in ancient temples, and taking photos and recording details in Indy’s journal are important steps in that process. I love a good mystery or environmental puzzle to solve, so seeing gameplay footage of Indiana snapping pictures of important objects and filing them into his journal as clues really lit a fire in me.
As MachineGames explained it, properly engaging with the environment in the game in ways like this also feeds into a progression system that affords players “Adventure Points” to spend on special skills, which are first discovered in collectible books, providing plenty of incentive to pore over and catalogue absolutely everything you come across. Though it’ll be a linear adventure, players are going to have regular opportunities to strike their own path and look for hidden secrets, side objectives and more throughout the game’s distinct chapters – and the team confirmed that the completionists among us will be able to scoot back to any previous areas to clean up at any time.
Of course, combat will definitely still play a crucial role in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and the same attitude towards freedom in exploration and traversal rings true here. MachineGames wants players to decide how they approach potentially-deadly human encounters, whether it’s using their wits to get around unseen (or just unbothered), go in loud with all the firepower at their disposal or outmaneuver their enemies. Indy’s iconic whip comes into play here, of course, allowing him to whip weapons out of hands, subdue aggressors, swing to a quick getaway and more. One of my favourite details, which seems to be tied to one of those unlockable skills, saw a downed Indy able to avoid a game over screen by crawling over to his fedora lying on the ground and triumphantly re-seat it on his head for a second wind – brilliant.
If I have any early reservations after seeing this chunky preview, it’s the way the game cuts between first and third-person cameras when doing things like climbing or swinging – it just looks a little jarring, though until I can get hands-on I can’t say for sure if that’s the case when actually playing the game. Otherwise, visually, it looks an absolute treat with a clear reverence for the source material accompanied by MachineGames’ mastery of the POV and dynamic, visceral action. Presenting the game (mostly) in first-person, as the studio says it, not only leverages its existing experience but puts players right up against these intricate puzzles, discoveries, environments and characters and it certainly looks fantastic.
If the full game can live up to the early promise shown in these bits of gameplay we saw ahead of time – running the full gamut of a true Indiana Jones adventure from solving ancient puzzles to making death-defying getaways, tangling with bad guys and respectfully admiring the beautiful face of a young Harrison Ford – I think MachineGames could have one of the most exciting ever video game adaptations of a Lucasfilm property on its hands.
