It’s the spring of 1977, and George Lucas is petrified. Having just wrapped work on his third feature film, Star Wars, he retreats to Hawaii, unable to face the early reviews. Yet as he frets in a five-star resort, Lucas bumps into another Hollywood hideaway – Steven Spielberg. Making sandcastles together under the Maui sun, Lucas pitches Spielberg a story that riffs on the simpler era of 1950s’ serials, an action-packed spectacular about a James Bond-esque archaeologist. This crypt-robbing Casanova’s name? Indiana … Smith.
The hero’s moniker certainly benefited from some finessing, and the action-packed Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) raked in $354m at the box office. Yet as great as Indy’s influence was on cinema, it might have had an even bigger one on video games. It inspired Lara Croft’s tomb-raiding antics and Uncharted’s wise-cracking Nathan Drake. There have also been games starring Indy himself, most notably LucasArts’ brilliant graphic adventures from the early-90s, but it’s been decades since the last interactive Indiana Jones adventure that wasn’t made of Lego. This December, he’ll finally get another crack of the gaming whip with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, from the studio behind Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus – in a game that actually looks like the films.Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: a video game that will whip film fans into a frenzyMachineGames’ long-awaited iteration of the George Lucas and Steven Spielberg franchise looks set to deliver the most authentic Indy adventure yet. Hold on to your hats for an unforgettable rideIt’s the spring of 1977, and George Lucas is petrified. Having just wrapped work on his third feature film, Star Wars, he retreats to Hawaii, unable to face the early reviews. Yet as he frets in a five-star resort, Lucas bumps into another Hollywood hideaway – Steven Spielberg. Making sandcastles together under the Maui sun, Lucas pitches Spielberg a story that riffs on the simpler era of 1950s’ serials, an action-packed spectacular about a James Bond-esque archaeologist. This crypt-robbing Casanova’s name? Indiana … Smith.
The hero’s moniker certainly benefited from some finessing, and the action-packed Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) raked in $354m at the box office. Yet as great as Indy’s influence was on cinema, it might have had an even bigger one on video games. It inspired Lara Croft’s tomb-raiding antics and Uncharted’s wise-cracking Nathan Drake. There have also been games starring Indy himself, most notably LucasArts’ brilliant graphic adventures from the early-90s, but it’s been decades since the last interactive Indiana Jones adventure that wasn’t made of Lego. This December, he’ll finally get another crack of the gaming whip with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, from the studio behind Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus – in a game that actually looks like the films.Set a year after the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark, we find our hat-loving hero licking his wounds after a breakup with fiancee, Marion Ravenwood. When an artefact is stolen from the college Jones teaches at, Indy soon discovers that a great circle connects this missing artefact and the world’s most spiritually significant sites. Jones sets off to discover what links the locations before rival archaeologist Emmerich Voss can plunder them for the Third Reich. A standard break-up story, really.“Working on this game … It’s been a childhood dream,” beams the Great Circle’s design director, Jens Andersson. “It’s just one of those [properties] that you think you will never get the opportunity to work on.”It’s a typically globe-trotting story, with Indy starting out in 1937 Connecticut before sneaking through the Vatican, exploring Shanghai, climbing the Himalayas and skulking across Thailand’s Sukhothai temples.
“Making sure that this feels like Indiana Jones has really been the biggest thing with this project,” says creative director Axel Torvenius. “Raiders to us is the most iconic representation of Indiana Jones, the first that the world came to love. So, it felt very natural to keep that as our main reference.”Working closely with Lucasfilm Games, Axel and the team at MachineGames had access to a trove of previously unseen material. “We’ve been in weekly meetings with Lucasfilm,” says Torvenius. “From audio [to] design, narrative, art … they’ve been an invaluable resource. They are the experts on Indiana Jones and everything that goes with it. We even gained access to their archive … really old and rare material, early concept art from Raiders, rare photos from sets.”I could see the results of that painstaking research watching a short section of the game, in which Indy leaped across chasms, navigating ancient crypts by torchlight and dodging deadly traps. The Great Circle feels as comfortingly Indy as the quips that accompany each blow to a Nazi’s head – with the difference that you see the action through the hero’s eyes. “We want to create the feeling of not just playing Indiana Jones, but being Indiana Jones,” Andersson explains.The Great Circle’s main quest will, of course, be a linear, cinematic tale, but there are also open areas that players can explore at their own leisure. As Indy wandered around a bustling Middle Eastern bazaar, a whole host of people and distractions were beckoning. Looking for side-quests and taking the time to explore will earn adventure points that allow players to unlock new abilities of their choice. Some of these optional moments hark back to the old LucasArts adventure games, in that they’re designed to test your puzzle-solving skills. “Maybe you encounter a mystery around the corner: you are encouraged to solve that, and you get rewards for it,” says Andersson, “and these optional puzzles and missions may be even harder.”
The hero’s moniker certainly benefited from some finessing, and the action-packed Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) raked in $354m at the box office. Yet as great as Indy’s influence was on cinema, it might have had an even bigger one on video games. It inspired Lara Croft’s tomb-raiding antics and Uncharted’s wise-cracking Nathan Drake. There have also been games starring Indy himself, most notably LucasArts’ brilliant graphic adventures from the early-90s, but it’s been decades since the last interactive Indiana Jones adventure that wasn’t made of Lego. This December, he’ll finally get another crack of the gaming whip with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, from the studio behind Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus – in a game that actually looks like the films.Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: a video game that will whip film fans into a frenzyMachineGames’ long-awaited iteration of the George Lucas and Steven Spielberg franchise looks set to deliver the most authentic Indy adventure yet. Hold on to your hats for an unforgettable rideIt’s the spring of 1977, and George Lucas is petrified. Having just wrapped work on his third feature film, Star Wars, he retreats to Hawaii, unable to face the early reviews. Yet as he frets in a five-star resort, Lucas bumps into another Hollywood hideaway – Steven Spielberg. Making sandcastles together under the Maui sun, Lucas pitches Spielberg a story that riffs on the simpler era of 1950s’ serials, an action-packed spectacular about a James Bond-esque archaeologist. This crypt-robbing Casanova’s name? Indiana … Smith.
The hero’s moniker certainly benefited from some finessing, and the action-packed Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) raked in $354m at the box office. Yet as great as Indy’s influence was on cinema, it might have had an even bigger one on video games. It inspired Lara Croft’s tomb-raiding antics and Uncharted’s wise-cracking Nathan Drake. There have also been games starring Indy himself, most notably LucasArts’ brilliant graphic adventures from the early-90s, but it’s been decades since the last interactive Indiana Jones adventure that wasn’t made of Lego. This December, he’ll finally get another crack of the gaming whip with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, from the studio behind Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus – in a game that actually looks like the films.Set a year after the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark, we find our hat-loving hero licking his wounds after a breakup with fiancee, Marion Ravenwood. When an artefact is stolen from the college Jones teaches at, Indy soon discovers that a great circle connects this missing artefact and the world’s most spiritually significant sites. Jones sets off to discover what links the locations before rival archaeologist Emmerich Voss can plunder them for the Third Reich. A standard break-up story, really.“Working on this game … It’s been a childhood dream,” beams the Great Circle’s design director, Jens Andersson. “It’s just one of those [properties] that you think you will never get the opportunity to work on.”It’s a typically globe-trotting story, with Indy starting out in 1937 Connecticut before sneaking through the Vatican, exploring Shanghai, climbing the Himalayas and skulking across Thailand’s Sukhothai temples.
“Making sure that this feels like Indiana Jones has really been the biggest thing with this project,” says creative director Axel Torvenius. “Raiders to us is the most iconic representation of Indiana Jones, the first that the world came to love. So, it felt very natural to keep that as our main reference.”Working closely with Lucasfilm Games, Axel and the team at MachineGames had access to a trove of previously unseen material. “We’ve been in weekly meetings with Lucasfilm,” says Torvenius. “From audio [to] design, narrative, art … they’ve been an invaluable resource. They are the experts on Indiana Jones and everything that goes with it. We even gained access to their archive … really old and rare material, early concept art from Raiders, rare photos from sets.”I could see the results of that painstaking research watching a short section of the game, in which Indy leaped across chasms, navigating ancient crypts by torchlight and dodging deadly traps. The Great Circle feels as comfortingly Indy as the quips that accompany each blow to a Nazi’s head – with the difference that you see the action through the hero’s eyes. “We want to create the feeling of not just playing Indiana Jones, but being Indiana Jones,” Andersson explains.The Great Circle’s main quest will, of course, be a linear, cinematic tale, but there are also open areas that players can explore at their own leisure. As Indy wandered around a bustling Middle Eastern bazaar, a whole host of people and distractions were beckoning. Looking for side-quests and taking the time to explore will earn adventure points that allow players to unlock new abilities of their choice. Some of these optional moments hark back to the old LucasArts adventure games, in that they’re designed to test your puzzle-solving skills. “Maybe you encounter a mystery around the corner: you are encouraged to solve that, and you get rewards for it,” says Andersson, “and these optional puzzles and missions may be even harder.”
