Indiana Jones Steals the Show at the Xbox Direct

ign.com:

Microsoft’s second (hopefully annual?) Xbox Developer Direct went, like the first, exceptionally well. While we didn’t get a shadow-dropped killer exclusive – and let’s be honest, that’s not an expectation that Team Xbox probably wants to set – we did still get the surprise of a behind-the-scenes look at Square Enix’s upcoming Visions of Mana. Better yet, we got a good look at gameplay from Obsidian’s upcoming first-person RPG Avowed, we got the Hellblade 2 release date we’ve been waiting for, and best of all, we got the proper reveal of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, the new first-person (!) action/adventure/puzzler/whip-simulator that’s being executive produced by Elder Scrolls and Fallout director Todd Howard. I’m extremely pleased with Microsoft’s showing, and it helps set the tone for what should be a very good year of Xbox exclusives.

Let’s start with the unquestionable headliner of the event: Indiana Jones. It’s looking stellar on the latest version of id Software’s idTech engine, and it surprised many with the fact that it takes place primarily from the first-person perspective. In hindsight this makes a lot of sense, because not only is developer MachineGames’ entire catalog comprised of first-person games (i.e. Wolfenstein: The New Order, Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus, their various expansion packs, and the incredible original-Xbox exclusive the team made when they worked together at Starbreeze, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay), but quite frankly, Naughty Dog already did the whole third-person Indiana Jones thing quite well four times. If MachineGames had gone third-person, the online discourse following the reveal would be absolutely toxic, with Sony fanboys downvoting and comment-bombing the trailer, calling it an Uncharted clone. Going first-person not only leans into the studio’s expertise, it allows them to put their own spin on an Indiana Jones game.

More exciting for me was how much of the aforementioned Riddick’s DNA is