A single-player narrative-driven action-adventure Indiana Jones game made by MachineGames sounds like a match so perfect on paper, it’s almost surprising it took this long for it to happen. Regardless, here we are, less than a month away from the launch of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, with MachineGames, Bethesda, and Microsoft continuing to reveal more of the game, the game continuing to look promising, and the excitement surrounding it continuing to build. To prepare for its approaching release, then, here, we’ll talk about crucial details that you should know about Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
ORIGINAL STORY BY TODD HOWARD
We’ve always associated Todd Howard with all things Bethesda Game Studios, from Elder Scrolls to Fallout to Starfield, but this is him taking up an important role in a non-BGS Bethesda-owned studio. Wolfenstein developer MachineGames is, of course, the team responsible for crafting this adventure, but Howard has served as an executive producer, and more importantly, also conceptualized the original story that will be told in the game. And what exactly is that story?
STORY DETAILS
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is set in the year 1937 and begins with the theft of a valuable artifact from Marshall College, Professor Jones’ place of work. An investigation of the theft leads Indy on the trail of the Great Circle, a circle perfectly aligned around the globe along the locations of a number of different locations of spiritual and historical significance. On his adventure, Indy will be joined by Italian journalist Gina Lombardi, and as always, will be locking horns with plenty of Nazis and fascists, led by the enigmatic psychological mastermind, Emmerich Voss.
LOCATIONS
The globetrotting nature of Indiana Jones stories is always one of their most crucial components, and sure enough, The Great Circle won’t disappoint on that front. The game’s very premise will obviously demand as much, as Indy travels to different locations across the world as he investigates the titular Great Circle. Included among the many locations that players will visit in the game are the Vatican City, the Sukhothai temples in Thailand, the pyramids of Giza in Egypt, and the snow-capped mountains of the Himalayas.
NOT A SHOOTER
MachineGames has made its name as an accomplished developer of first-person shooters on the back of the Wolfenstein franchise, but Indiana Jones is taking a different approach. It is first-person, and it will allow for gunfights, but the focus is instead going to be either on improvising to the best of your abilities amidst deliberately chaotic hand-to-hand combat, something that should ideally capture the spirit of Indiana Jones.
COMBAT
Combat is going to allow players to tackle situations in a variety of ways. Indy will, of course, have access to his revolver, but players aren’t going to be encouraged to shoot, unless absolutely necessary. You can, however, use pretty much anything else you can get your hands on for melee combat purposes. Indy can pick up all manner of objects to whack enemies with, and can even use the butt of his gun pistol-whip foes. And of course, his whip will also have a crucial role to play, as you’d expect from an Indiana Jones game. Other than that, there will be plenty of regular fisticuffs to go around, where players will be required to pay careful attention to blocks, parries, and attacks of their own.
STEALTH
Outside of out-and-out combat, stealth will often be the way to go. You can, of course, expect the basic mechanics, whether that’s distracting enemies by throwing objects, silencing them with stealth takedowns, and what have you. More interestingly, however, the game will also feature social stealth sections that will see Indy heading into the heart of enemy territory while disguised as one of them and having to blend in in order to avoid attention.
ADVENTURE POINTS
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle clearly isn’t going to be the sort of game that lets players heavily customize their builds, and for good reason, though you obviously expect light progression mechanics nonetheless. These will come in the form of Adventure Points, which you will earn throughout your journey to then spend on unlocking a variety of different upgrades that will allow you to customize Indy’s abilities. Oh, and speaking of abilities…
ABILITIES
As the famous fedora-wearing archaeologist, players will be able to use a number of different abilities throughout the course of the experience, and the ones that have been revealed certainly sound interesting. There’s Lucky Hat, which will allow players a second shot at life after a fatal blow if they are able to crawl to Indy’s hat and put it back on within a limited window. Then there’s Bear Hands, which will appeal to those who wish to prioritize melee combat, thanks to the harder hitting blows it will enable.
OPEN AREAS
Amidst the game’s steady stream of scripted linear sections and cinematic set piece sequences, players will also be able to explore a variety of different open areas. No, The Great Circle is not an open world game, but there will be a number of these scattered throughout the game, where players will be encouraged to explore at their own pace. Interestingly enough, MachineGames has also said the game will implement immersive sim elements in these areas, with players being encouraged to experiment and approach situations in a variety of different ways.
SIDE CONTENT
The aforementioned open areas are going to feature plenty of optional content for players to dive into, from enemy camps to infiltrate and hidden puzzles and secrets to find and more. Of particular interest to many will likely be underground fight clubs, where players will be able to enter illegal fighting tournaments to get into brawls with Nazis (and other kinds of scum) for monetary rewards.
INDY’S JOURNAL
Exploration and puzzles will be heavily emphasized in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and you can expect Indy’s journal to be at the forefront with both. Not only are you going to be looking at your journal to keep track of puzzles and clues, its pages will also be continuously filled throughout your journey with new details and tidbits. The journal will contain maps, images, letters, sketches, and much more for players to peruse, serving not only as an archive of past events, but also as a tool to set up potential future story threads.
INDY’S CAMERA
Another tool that Indy will be making plenty of use of in the game will be his camera. Taking pictures of objects, landmarks, or points of interest in your surroundings will reveal important clues and historical details, while during puzzles, you can also use the camera to get hints about how to proceed. Seemingly, the camera isn’t going to be as important of a part of Indy’s toolkit as something like, say, his whip, but clearly, there will be times where players will be encouraged to make use of it.
CINEMATICS
MachineGames has always prided itself on crafting heavily story-focused games, which is exactly what Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is expected to be as well. For instance, the studio has confirmed that the game has over three hours of cinematics- which is par for the course for a MachineGames joint. In fact, 2017’s Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus also had over three hours of cutscenes, which means we should be expecting something in that same range.
PERFORMANCE
Full details on Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s performance and resolution targets across platforms haven’t yet been revealed, but some pertinent things have nonetheless been confirmed. For instance, speaking with Windows Central, creative director Axel Torvenius confirmed that the game is expected to target 60 FPS on both Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. “It might be that we will release even more details in terms of specifics, technical details, as we get closer to launch, once we see all the telemetry on performance,” he said. “But what I can tell you is that the ambition is that the game runs at 60 FPS on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, and that, you know, it shouldn’t be compromised in the visuals or the experience of the product. It should feel cohesive, running smoothly at 60 on both.”
Presumably, we can expect the same from the PS5 version when it launches next Spring.
MINIMUM PC REQUIREMENTS
MachineGames hasn’t yet revealed the full recommended specs for The Great Circle’s PC version, but its minimum requirements are known, at the very least- and they’re pretty demanding. To play the game on PC, you’re going to need either an i7 processor at 3.3GHz or better or a Ryzen 5 processor at 3.1Ghz or better, along with either GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER or a Radeon RX 6600 (with 8 GB of VRAM), an SSD, and 16 GB of RAM.