MToday, creating an Indiana Jones game may appear straightforward. Just take Uncharted’s Nathan Drake, transport him back in time about 80 years, give him a fedora and a whip, and witness the emergence of the golden idol. Dog mastered the formula for indie-inspired, globe-trotting action games over a decade ago. It would be understandable if Swedish studio MachineGames followed this same template.
However, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle chooses a different path. They intentionally avoid inviting such comparisons. This unconventional blockbuster shares more similarities with games like Dishonored and Hitman rather than Uncharted. While there are action and spectacle moments, along with some platforming, the focus lies more on puzzles, free-form stealth, and battling fascist enemies while disguised as a priest.
Set in 1937 between Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, The Great Circle follows Indy as he investigates a cult infiltrating Marshall College and stealing valuable artifacts. Pursued by giants from this cult after stealing a cat, Indy embarks on a journey to various historical sites globally.
The environment is filled with items ideal for testing Nazi intelligence. Photo: Bethesda
His first destination is Vatican City, setting the tone for the subsequent adventures. Vatican City serves as a vast, maze-like sandbox where players can freely explore at their own pace, carefully navigating around fascist threats. With various puzzle-solving elements and exciting discoveries, players get to immerse themselves in the thrill of uncovering ancient secrets while outsmarting enemy patrols.
Vatican City offers a diverse range of challenges and hidden areas to explore, setting a high standard that makes subsequent locations like the Pyramids of Giza seem more traditional in comparison. The transition to open-world exploration in later parts of the game allows for more experimentation with Indy’s abilities.
With encounters against various foes like Blackshirts and the Wehrmacht, The Great Circle captures the spontaneous action reminiscent of a Spielberg film. While combat is an option, stealth remains a preferred method, with a variety of tools at your disposal for defeating enemies. The game’s combat and stealth mechanics offer a dynamic and engaging experience amidst tomb raids and cinematic storytelling.
Despite its strong points, The Great Circle occasionally lacks the urgency expected in an Indiana Jones adventure, with pacing inconsistencies in certain acts. Nevertheless, the game picks up momentum later on, leading to a satisfying conclusion that encapsulates the essence of Spielberg’s filmography.
Grave robbing is a recurring theme. Photo: Bethesda
Overall, Indiana Jones: The Great Circle is a rich and affectionate tribute to Spielberg’s work, with a deep respect for the historical context that underlies the quest for the circular MacGuffin. It blends entertainment with poignant explorations of anti-fascist themes, shedding light on the dangers of far-right ideologies and manipulation.
Today marks the first day of Gamescom, the Cologne trade show that is currently the biggest event on the video game calendar. This year, I wasn't among the 300,000 or so spectators that flocked to Germany, but I did watch the two-hour livestreamed Opening Night broadcast yesterday. But don't worry if you didn't: here we bring you all the most interesting news, organized by theme, because we're tired of writing simple lists of games and trailers.
Frustrating news Xbox The biggest fanboy A new trailer for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, a new first-person adventure from Bethesda and MachineGames, has been released. In it, long-time video game actor Troy Baker looks charmingly excited about playing Indiana Jones. The game will be released on Xbox and PC on December 9th, but it was also announced that it will be released on PlayStation 5 in spring 2025. Earlier this year, Xbox head Phil Spencer said that Indiana Jones will be do not have It's planned to be a multi-platform game, so I'm interested to see how it unfolds.
An unexpected comeback Borderlands 4 is due to be released in 2025, and the trailer revealed very little – perhaps developer Gearbox was trying to capitalize on the anticipation of this month's film, but unfortunately, it wasn't very good.
Master of Albion. Photo: IGN
Peter Molyneux has released a new game, ” Master of Albionhas been kept very quiet (probably unsurprising as some of its recent games have been high-profile flops and the latest, Legacy, is Web3/blockchain and has gone very quiet after making £40m in NFTs in 2021). It's a mash-up of Molyneux's biggest god-game hits: Fable, Black & White, and Dungeon Keeper. By day, you build a town, design food, weapons, and armor to feed and equip your townsfolk, and generally play the role of a god. By night, you possess your warrior subjects and wield clubs to defend your town from fantasy creatures.
Ten years on from the first game, Monument Valley 3 is coming from Ustwo and Netflix, featuring the usual Escher-esque puzzles and mesmerizing colors. It'll be released on December 10th, and the previous two games will also be re-released on Netflix.
And the long-running Mafia series will see a new installment from Brighton-based Hangar 13, Mafia: The Old Country.
A debut game from a nervous developer Glowmade's multiplayer Rick and Morty-style cartoonish gameshow coliseum game, King of Meat, lets players create fearsome gauntlets that other players can challenge, much like a cartoonish Takeshi's Castle, and there was also Lynked: Banner of the Spark, a new cooperative action-adventure game that reminds me a bit of Hi-Fi Rush, from the new studio FuzzyBot, in which you kill evil robots and rescue cute ones to fuse with your arm for fighting powers.
Zombies and men with guns
Dying Light: The Beast. Photo: Techland
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has been shown off again ahead of its October launch, revealing one entire level of its single-player campaign, an overwhelmingly silly Cold War action-adventure. (Your character's analog camera is treated with the dignity of a gun, right down to the elaborate reload animations.) Techland is adding a new zombie game to its Dying Light series, The Beast, promising another 20 hours of open-world undead parkour action. There'll be even more zombies to shoot in the upcoming eight-player co-op survival game No More Room in Hell 2. And co-op survival shooter Arc Raiders, previously announced as a free game, will be released in 2025, and do not have You can play freely.
Most delayed TV shows Netflix's 100-player Squid Game was the show's most obvious video game tie-in, and I'm surprised it took this long. It's a selection of Fall Guys-esque cartoonish, sadistic challenges that look like a lot of fun.
Meanwhile, Deadpool director Tim Miller breathlessly teased his company Blur's new Amazon Prime TV series, The Secret Level, an anthology similar to Love, Death + Robots (also a Blur production) and described as a love letter to video games, due for release in December.
game I don't understand it, but it'll probably sell millions of copies.
Dune Awakening has received a tremendous response. Photo: Funcom
Billed as “the coziest open-world game ever,” Infinity Nikki seems like a completely baffling game, featuring pink-haired anime girls and a bunch of weird, cute singing creatures that look like adorable Noah's Ark. I'm not sure what to make of it.
And the upcoming Dune MMO, Dune: Awakening, in which hundreds of players explore the desert planet Arrakis and compete for abandoned technology and spice resources, drew a big response at the event.
For tasteful horror fans The trailer for Tarsier's upcoming Little Nightmares game looks very promising: a complex, intimate side-scrolling horror game. It's called ReanimalMeanwhile, Little Nightmares itself has been handed over to new developer Supermassive, a company with a long history in horror, and a trailer for it has now been released, maintaining the Tim Burton-esque toy-like atmosphere of the first two games.
game It looked especially cool
Majestic…Monster Hunter Wild. Photo: Capcom
With its menacingly majestic creatures, harsh weather, and expensive-looking production, Monster Hunter Wilds is a fantastic piece of work. I'm a long-time fan of the series and can't wait for this new game. Keep an eye out for an interview with the developer on the site soon.
There was an extended preview of Civilization VII, the latest attempt to capture the entire chaos of human history on a computer monitor.
meanwhile, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage The film depicts four kids in the summer of 1995, playing music in their garage and discussing their hopes for the future. But things don't always go as they hoped.
Finally, I note Shepherding the FlockDue for release in 2025, the game has a gentle Last Guardian vibe to it, as a young boy herds giant horned beasts through mountainous terrain.
A turn-based military tactics game…Tactical Breach Wizards. Photo: Suspicious developments
I was looking forward to Tactical Breakthrough Wizard For years, this game has been the third in the Defenestration Trilogy, a series of indie games about fun ways to throw enemies out of windows. It's made by the unfairly fun and talented developer Tom Francis. (Disclosure: I've known Tom since he was a games journalist.) In this turn-based, destructive military tactics game, you play a group of misfit wizards who make up for their uselessness as humans with some very useful abilities, like seeing a second into the future and raising the dead.
Our reviewer, Rick Lane, was totally enthralled by the game, writing, “Its blend of inventive, flexible puzzles and wickedly entertaining writing should be enough to warrant active play on anyone's console. But what qualifies it for the Bureau of Special Arcane Arts is how boldly it critiques the murky morality of military-themed games.”
Xbox has faced some challenges this year. Leaked announcements in January and February about games previously exclusive to Xbox coming to PlayStation and Nintendo Switch caused uproar among fans, leading to concerns about Microsoft’s commitment to Xbox exclusivity. However, only four games remained exclusive, as clarified by Xbox executives. In May, Xbox closed two popular studios, Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin. Meanwhile, sales of Xbox Series X/S consoles have been slow, with analysts noting a significant increase in PlayStation 5 sales.
The Xbox Games Showcase aimed to turn the tide for Microsoft, featuring big-budget games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, a new Indiana Jones game, and the return of Gears of War. Microsoft’s Game Pass service, which offers a monthly library of games, received a $1 billion investment. Following the merger with Activision Blizzard, Microsoft now boasts a vast number of game studios.
Exclusive Xbox games showcased included Perfect Dark and State of Decay 3, among others. The event also featured trailers for upcoming games like Fable, STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, and Flight Simulator. The show ended with a reveal of Gears of War: E-Day, set against an alien invasion.
The showcase also featured independent games like Mixtape and FragPunk, offering a diverse range of gameplay experiences. Overall, the event was well-received by Xbox fans and provided a positive outlook for the company after a challenging year. Compared to PlayStation’s game lineup, Xbox’s offerings for 2024 and 2025 appear more robust.
History isn’t full of glorious Indiana Jones video games. The Fate of Atlantis, a beautiful adventure from LucasArts. A pretty good Lego game. A proper imperial tomb. A great-looking SNES side-scrolling game, Greatest Adventures… good There are games, but very few of them are classic games that transcend the brand like Knights of the Old Republic. Maybe that is about to change.
At Microsoft’s latest Developer Direct online event streamed Thursday night, we saw: 12 minute preview Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a globe-trotting first-person adventure set between Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade. The project was revealed three years ago by him, but this is the first footage we’ve seen, and what we can expect. There are Nazis, there are whips, there is Dr. Jones in the desert and in a tomb, and there is an argument with Denholm Elliott in an old university building. And it includes a story about stolen artifacts that are somehow connected to an international network of ancient sites along a circle that stretches around the world.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Photo: Microsoft/MachineGames
Interestingly, much of the lengthy promotional video shown during the event went to developer MachineGames explaining why the game uses a first-person perspective. “Our game is all about putting yourself in the shoes of an indie and letting him see what he sees and feel what he feels,” said Senior Narrator his designer Edward Curtis-Syves. says. “For us at MachineGames, it’s best to do it from a first-person perspective. We believe it’s important to experience the adventure up close.” Perhaps of concern is the appearance of Indiana Jones. is so iconic that fans may miss seeing him move around on screen. In fact, his two major game franchises, Uncharted and Tomb Raider, which owe most to Raiders of the Lost Ark, both use a third-person perspective. , Indy mimics the cinematic feel of his series.
In fact, this game is going to do a great job of crawling out from under the legacies of these two series. Both have worked on the cinematic, puzzle-filled action-adventure genre and established much of its promise. For example, in The Great Circle, Indy is accompanied by a hard-nosed journalist named Gina Lombardi, not unlike Elena Fisher, Nathan Drake’s partner in colonial crimes. It also looks like there will be some environmental puzzles, with one section taking place inside a tomb and requiring you to place a stone gear, presumably to open a door. This will be very familiar to anyone who has played Uncharted 3 or Tomb Raider, for example. : Anniversaries and adventures inspired by Indiana Jones. The video also promises multiple routes through key set-piece locations, including the chance to sneak in and study enemy patrol routes. Again, Nathan and Lara have been doing this for years.
But this is MachineGames’ brilliant reboot of the Wolfenstein series. It’s a studio that’s used to taking established concepts and giving them strange new twists. For those worried about not seeing Indie on screen, the team brought real detail and character to protagonist BJ Blazkowicz, who rarely appears in games.And we teeth Go see Indy. The video highlights that the camera switches to a third-person perspective during certain sections of gameplay, and of course there’s a very convincing Harrison Ford model present in the cutscenes. The character is expertly voiced by video game actor Troy Baker, best known for his role as Joel in The Last of Us.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Photo: Microsoft/MachineGames
More promising, however, is the implementation of classic Indie tropes. It seems that his whip can be used not only as a weapon but also as a crossing device, and you can enjoy full-fledged punching with thunderous punch sound effects. Additionally, the arrogant Nazi antagonist Emmerich Voss is a classic indie film. It’s also great to see the role of horror movie stalwart Tony Todd, who is seen stealing a seemingly minor artifact from Indy’s workplace, Marshall University, at the beginning of the game.
It seems unfair that Great Circle has to contend with two games that plundered Indiana Jones’ treasure trove of ideas, images, and action. But of course, what’s there is the Lucasfilm legacy: the character and his worldview, the whip, that score, and decades of goodwill. Additionally, MachineGames is a really interesting studio that isn’t afraid of compelling and idiosyncratic ideas. Indy is going to need a lot of them if it’s going to win against the young usurpers.
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