By far, the biggest reveal at the second Xbox Developer Direct was Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. The new first-person action/adventure game in development at MachineGames looked great in its first presentation and isn’t too far off, either, since it is slated to launch later this year on PC and Xbox Series S|X.
Some may not recall it, but the game announced three years ago is being executive produced by Bethesda’s Todd Howard, the man behind Elder Scrolls, the latest Fallout games, and Starfield. It was he who actually campaigned for it. In a new interview posted on the Lucasfilm website, we learned that Todd Howard had the idea for the Great Circle storyline. Game Director Jerk Gustafsson said:
We developed the story synopsis in-house at MachineGames in collaboration with Todd Howard, who had long nurtured the idea of doing a story-based game on the mysterious Great Circle.
Gustafsson also explained the real-life concept behind it.
A “great circle” is any circle that divides a sphere in half. On Earth, the most well-known one is obviously the equator. But they can exist from any point really, and are used heavily in aviation when plotting your course. It turns out there is a very real and mysterious great circle that is not the equator, but one that connects many of history’s greatest historical sites such as Giza, Easter Island, Sukhothai, Nazca, and many more. Their connection has remained a mystery, and this provides the perfect adventure for our game.
The Game Director of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle then discussed the main pillars of the plot.
Of course, we wanted to be true to Indiana Jones’ character, because that is the most important thing for us, and be sure that where his story is at that point in time and be sure that this chapter fits into Indy’s story.
When we come into the story, it’s almost a year after Raiders, and we wanted to explore where Indy would be at this time, having just separated from Marion, being sort of lost again, adrift in his own obsessions with his work. For that we had enormous help from the team at Lucasfilm Games, in addition to vetting the story with them for creative feedback to make sure that we stayed true to the franchise.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle features a mix of linear missions and open maps. It’s powered by id Tech (possibly the new version of the engine) and features the likeness of young Harrison Ford, voiced by Troy Baker. More information should come in throughout the next few months.
