Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is more a chronicle of Riddick than Wolfenstein

MachineGames, the studio that developed the next one Indiana Jones and the Great Circleis probably best known for Wolfenstein. Aside from both being titles from the same studio and being about the fight against fascism, the games have little in common. The Great Circle it's more like the 2004 title Starbreeze The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, according to a MachineGame developer (many of whom were from Starbreeze).

Executive producer Jerk Gustafsson spoke to Game Rant about the team's evolving formula and, in some cases, callbacks to older titles, in a recent interview. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle it actually marks significant firsts for MachineGames, Gustafsson explained.

Indiana Jones isn't about shooting

In his heart, Wolfenstein is a skill-based shooter with deep and interesting narratives. This is not the heart Indiana JonesAlthough. Despite having some impressive and famous action scenes, the core of the Indiana Jones the experience is adventure, exploration and puzzle solving. The blend of weapons and adventure is more like The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher BayGustafsson said. Another nod to 's game design Riddick they are the most open-ended mission elements in the game.

Another important difference is maturity. THE Wolfenstein the games are rated M for obvious reasons, but Indiana Jones it has always been a family adventure. Accordingly, Gustafsson mentioned it The Great Circle is MachineGames' first teen title.

This is a very different game, at least from what we've done previously here at MachineGames. In many ways, I think this game is closer to our old days of Starbreeze – games like
The Chronicles of Riddick
– as compared to
Wolfenstein
games. Aside from the switch from first-person to third-person perspective, the main differences are a more open mission structure, the adventure first with lots of exploration and puzzles, and our first game for teenagers where the matinee aspect and creating a game for everyone was much more important than skill-based action and shooting.

Indeed, The Great Circle Treat weapons with caution. MachineGames added the concept of escalation Indiana Jones and the Great Circle– now drawing a gun also pushes the enemy to raise the stakes, while choosing to swing, for example, a frying pan does less to induce an enemy to point a gun at the player's archaeologist extraordinaire. This helps MachineGames achieve the goal they set out with the game from the beginning: to make the player truly feel like Indiana Jones.

This type of authenticity determines many distinctions between Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and the Wolfenstein franchising. This not only required the development of the escalation combat system and the reformulation of the central focus of the game, but also the development of other new systems and ideas, some of which were clearly inspired by Riddick. That's not to say that MachineGames' approach to some of these elements feels 20 years old. Where Riddick had pretty standard stealth mechanics, The Great Circle relies on Indiana Jones' penchant for disguise and poses challenges to stealth gameplay, such as denying players the idea of ​​a truly silent takedown.

MachineGames also focused heavily on puzzles and traps The Great Circlealthough it innovatively includes a puzzle difficulty slider as well as Indy deuteragonist Gina Lombardi, who helps the player with the puzzles. While it was fundamental to an authentic Indiana Jones experience to include interesting and challenging puzzles and traps, it was also important for the developers to keep these elements accessible. As Gustafsson said,

“Overall, we needed to try out several new systems and features, and while there were many challenges during development, I'm proud of the results and what the team was able to accomplish with this game which I think stands out as something unique and different, not only for us, but also for everyone who plays it… It will be very interesting to see how players react and experience the MachineGames version of a game
Indiana Jones
adventure. Also, it's a little scary, but we all want to bring something new to the table, and we shouldn't hesitate to do so, even if there are some unknowns attached to it.”