We Ask the Indiana Jones Devs If Great Circle's Story Is Canon And Whether You Can Choose Poorly

ign.com:

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is billed as a love letter, but it's not quite what fans might expect from either the beloved action franchise or developer MachineGames — the studio behind hit games like Wolfenstein: The New Order. Instead it's a methodical game in which Indy dons disguises, creeps around famous areas like the Pyramids of Giza, and solves ancient puzzles. It's less brawling on a tank heading for a cliff's edge, and more like the classic LucasArts adventure game, Fate of Atlantis.

"We have [action setpieces], but there's so much more and that's why the character is so interesting. He's a professor, he's an archeologist, but he also know how to punch," MachineGames Creative Director Jens Andersson says.

This unorthodox approach to Indiana Jones — not to mention the decision to put it in first-person — has left plenty of fans feeling non-plussed. But Andersson and Lucasfilm Games Craig Derrick say that they're making an authentic Indiana Jones experience, even if they won't confirm one way or another whether it's canon.

"It needs to be a stand-alone story. And where we go from there, we'll see. It needs to be a self-contained story, like any of the movies," Andersson says.

In an interview conducted during our hands-on preview of The Great Circle, we quizzed Andersson and Derrick on how it's handling action, whether you can "choose poorly," the PS5 Pro, and numerous other topics, and you can find their answers below. As for Indiana Jones and the Great Circles, it's set to release on Xbox and PC on December 9, with a PS5 release date set for spring 2025.

As we get closer to release, what has MachineGames had to learn over the course of this experience in order to make Indiana Jones everything you want it to be?

Jens Andersson, Creative Director, MachineGames: Well, it's been a long development. We had to learn a lot, but I talked about this just now as well a little bit, where you bring everything you have from your previous project into the next