“We are doing something completely new and completely different”

Indiana Jones and the Great Cross is perhaps one of the most anticipated games of 2024, allowing players to walk in the shoes of the beloved explorer for the first time in several years. The title was developed by MachineGames, the studio behind the latest entries in the Wolfenstein franchise, along with LucasFilm Games, with publishing by Bethesda Softworks. Although no official date has been announced yet, the PC and Xbox exclusive is slated for release sometime in late 2024.

This new Indiana Jones adventure takes place in 1937, set in between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark And Last Crusade. It will follow Indy as he investigates the titular Great Circle: A group of mysterious sites scattered around the globe that together form a perfect circle on a map. Although not too much of the game has been revealed yet, the title will take players around the world as they use stealth, combat and Indy’s trusted whip to solve puzzles and uncover the meaning behind the circular phenomenon.

Screen Rant Interviewed Indiana Jones and the Great Crosss design director Jens Andersson and creative director Axel Torvenius at Gamescom to learn more about the game’s plot, Troy Baker’s role as Indy and the grand undertaking of telling a new story in an already established universe.

Pushing the limits of adventure with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Create bolder ideas, tougher puzzles and bigger adventures for players

Screen Rant: First I’d like to hear a little bit about how you went about approaching a franchise like that Indiana Jones Against something like Wolfenstein. They’re obviously both beloved IPs, but did that come with more or less freedom?

Axel Torvenius: To some extent, there hasn’t been that much of a difference in terms of how we experience the freedom we have to make the game we want to make and the game we love to make. We have a very close working relationship with Lucasfilm Games.

We’re constantly iterating and reiterating design choices, ideas, story beats to make sure they feel we’re on the right path and also help us understand what the right path is. They are the IP expert, and we are happy to be able to work with them. At the heart of it, it wasn’t a major shift, but obviously working with a licensed IP is somewhat different from working with something we’ve been doing for three, four games in a row.

But for us, This was a positive change and a positive challenge. To some extent, very early on, I reiterated to the team internally the importance of making sure that understanding the existing IP and the existing character is two main things that are good: one, it gives us a framework of what we can do; It also gives us a framework of what we cannot do and which will serve us as a guiding principle very early in the project. There’s no time to try to explore some ideas that we feel like, “That’s not it. That’s not hitting the note we want to hit.” Try to understand that early and then cement that so we can make the best and the strongest Indiana Jones game we possibly can with the resources we have.

Jens Andersson: I also think there is a difference in terms of: Indiana Jones is such a massive IP. It is so well-developed, the movies on the screen – that’s how it looks. Wolfenstein, it was much more to, “What is a modern version of Wolfenstein?” It gets a lot more about – we’re massive fans, obviously of Indiana Jones, so what are the parts that we feel work best as a game?

We put this game between Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade. This is the time we feel this is where we want the game to be between. It’s about taking all the great stuff that’s out there and making it into this big cauldron and then developing the story on top of itAnd try to make it into a really great video game.

You have Troy Baker playing Indy. Can you talk a little bit about what the casting process was like and what set his performance apart from all the other Indians you’ve heard?

Axel Torvenius: Yes, absolutely. We reviewed and looked at many different candidates, but in the end we landed with Troy. The first time I heard his test lines, I didn’t really understand that they were test lines. I was like, “Yeah, so those are the reference lines. Where’s Troy?” And he’s like, “This is Troy.” [Laughs] It’s like, “You’re kidding me!” It was so good. It was very clear to us that this is our man and he is extremely passionate about the IP. He was extremely passionate about the project and he was an immensely great person to have on board. We are very, very grateful to be able to work with him.

Why did you choose that specific moment in Indy’s life to explore versus doing something like a straight prequel? Will fans be able to go into the game and discover more about stuff that was maybe hinted at in the later films, like stuff that happens with Marion and that sort of thing?

Axel Torvenius: The first step is that Todd Howard wanted to do an Indiana Jones game for a very long time. He has this big core idea, the basic premise of ​​a strong story that he pitches with Lucasfilm Games. They are also excited about it. We were approached by Todd in terms of being a good fit to develop this, and we’re extremely honored and happy to be able to be in a position to make it happen.

Part of this is where it also sets what part of the Indiana Jones timeline the game should be in. It was a fairly natural choice from the start, and as we see in some of the free footage, there are familiar faces in our game that you may have seen in early movies. That’s all I can say about the similarities. But the importance is to make sure that the tone comes through so that it feels like we are placed in the timeline between the two movies.

Jens Andersson: But it is, of course, Many things from the Indiana Jones universe that we managed to bake into the game for the devout fan. Many things like that.

There were a number of Indiana Jones games over the years, including some really fun point and click puzzler type games and that sort of thing. Did you look a lot from the past titles in terms of stuff like inspiring the games, puzzling sides or structure, anything like that?

Axel Torvenius: In terms of being a structure of reference? Absolutely. You always need to summarize and analyze the content that already exists when you try to create something new to add to the IP. Of course, we have been looking at previous movies and previous games, but it is difficult to compare what we have done to any of the other existing media since we are doing something completely new and completely different. It’s again: see the tone, hit the theme, make sure it fits into the existing IP.

Jens Andersson: I’m a massive fan of all point and click adventures, and we have a lot of people on the team who like those, so there wasn’t that much research needed because we didn’t clear them for too long. But it’s about: What is a modern adventure game, what is the adventure game that we want to make in Indiana Jones?

We want to have puzzles. Point and click games have a certain kind of puzzles, and Maybe it gave us a little more confidence to push that, because it was a historical use of Indiana Jones for building these kinds of games.s. They are lovely. Of course, we need to make them work in our immersive, cinematic, first-person, adventure, so it’s about the ideas they have in it. How can we replicate this in our game? How do we make puzzles? How do we investigate?

You may have mentioned that it makes you a little more confident to take bold swings with what you’re trying. Do you have any sort of examples of where there was a feature or an element that you thought of where you really felt like you were sort of swinging for the fences and being more experimental in that regard?

Jens Andersson: I think an easy one to point to are just puzzles. Puzzles in AAA games are usually almost dubbed down. They need to be so accessible that everyone can play through it, and the way people tend to do that is to dumb them down so it becomes cinematic by clicking. This is one of the things we wanted to avoid.

We spent a lot of time trying to develop our puzzles, but also developing the sort of secondary things like a strong hint system using the camera, using the magazine, so We can have that while still making sure it’s something accessible. It’s a huge part of the Indiana Jones world, we really want to represent that well.

I just saw people realizing today online that there was already subtly mentioned DLC for the game in the listings of the different editions. Can you say anything about that?

Axel Torvenius: What we can say at this point: We’re extremely focused right now on making sure we’re in the finishing stretch of getting the game done, done, done. Then the future plans – more information will come, but a DLC in 2025, that’s what was communicated and it will happen.

Jens Andersson: We can’t say much more than that.