Devs at Indiana Jones and The Great Circle say that an Indy-themed game 'couldn't be a shooting game, shouldn't be a shooting game', so they are embracing his signature whip and improvised fights instead, as well as disguise-based stealth.

MachineGames developers discussed in greater detail how Indiana Jones and The Great Circle builds upon their previous games, such as the new Wolfensteins or Chronicles of Riddick - Escape From Butcher Bay. The emphasis on rollicking improvisation makes me more excited for this adventure than I was previously.

"Indiana Jones is not a gunslinger. Right? Jens Andersson is the design director at MachineGames. "So it couldn't be a shooting game, shouldn't be a shooting game." But hand-to-hand combat, that's totally logical."

Andersson, who joined MachineGames in 2022, worked with the founders of the company on the incredibly good side adventure for Vin Diesel’s sci-fi buff Hannibal Lecter. It has some of the most impressive first person melee fighting ever seen in a video game. This is a great pedigree but it's not the end of the story. Indiana Jones' brand of brutal prison knives fights and cold blooded stalking is very different from Riddick.

Andersson explained that "He's a fighter but it's not in his nature." "He's a lucky, unlikely hero--how can that be translated into gameplay? How do we make the player feel this humor?"

"Compared to Riddick that has a completely different style of hand-to-hand combat." [The Great Circle] has a more semi-chaotic feel. You can pick up things in the environment, like pots and pans to smash into people's faces ..."

"And banjos!" Axel Torvenius is the MachineGames creative director.

"...And banjos," Andersson confirmed. "I love banjos."

This had me sitting up straight in my chair. Improvised brawling, like that, must be a nightmare to implement and program. But it has led to my favorite videogames: Dark Messiah's freeform fighting and Baldur's Gate 3's slapstick turn-based combat come to mind. Indy's whip, which will be used in both combat and navigation, will also play a major role in the game. It has a dedicated button.

Outside of combat, it sounds as though the Great Circle will expand on the Wolfenstein games' light stealthing. This is dangerously close to the immersive sims territory I love. Andersson described how the game expands and contracts between linear and more open areas. This sounds similar to The New Order or Colossus.

The Great Circle will offer a social stealth option that sounds like an expansion of Wolfenstein's Tarantino-esque, nail-biting sequences, like the beginnings of The Old Blood. Andersson said that "every large location has a variety of disguises you can discover." "That helps pass as someone who belongs there, giving you access to areas that you would otherwise have a hard time getting through."

I was a little disappointed that we wouldn't be getting a Wolfenstein 3 but the Great Circle sounds like everything I wanted from that game with an Indiana Jones twist. The Great Circle is now a "must play" game for me when it launches on December 8.