Bethesda’s Todd Howard Raids Indiana Jones Game Studio, Doesn’t Get Crushed By Giant Boulder

The biggest highlight of the January 2024 Developer Direct this week was easily Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, the first new game starring the famed explorer of Earth’s ancient history in over a decade. Various members of developer MachineGames spoke about the upcoming game, and if you looked closely, a sneaky cameo by Bethesda’s creative director Todd Howard could be seen right at the end.

Your eyes aren’t fooling you, as Howard really did swipe a golden idol while game director Jerk Gustafsson announced The Great Circle’s release window for PC and Xbox Series X|S. Unfortunately, the Developer Direct had no footage of Howard escaping a giant boulder trap set up by Gustafsson in his office.

For those of you who haven’t seen Raiders of the Lost Ark–and honestly, shame on you–Howard’s quick appearance references Indy’s first appearance on the big screen. It’s a nice nod to the source material, as Howard is a superfan of Indiana Jones who pitched a game to series creator George Lucas in 2009.

That project was never produced, but Howard is serving as executive producer on Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. He won’t be involved in the day-to-day business of developing the Indiana Jones game, but he’ll be regularly checking in on its progress at MachineGames when he isn’t swiping precious artifacts that belong in a museum.

For details on just what the Great Circle is and more, you can check out everything we know about the new Indiana Jones game.