Indiana Jones and The Great Circle Devs Go Behind the Scenes on its Development

While being strongly associated with Star Wars, Lucasfilm has produced several other cultural touchstones. One of the most noteworthy is getting a new game courtesy of MachineGames and Bethesda’s Todd Howard: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

Game Rant recently spoke with executive producer Jerk Gustafsson, creative director Axel Torvenius, and design director Jens Andersson, among others, about the process of designing Indiana Jones and The Great Circle.

“We Want You to Feel Like Indiana Jones”

Q: Indiana Jones has been described as a dream game for Todd Howard before, and he saw the narrative greenlit by Lucasfilm Games before bringing it to MachineGames. Can you take us back to that first day? What was your reaction like to meeting with Howard and why do you think he picked MachineGames for the title?

Gustafsson: I think a lot of it has to do with our history where we have been working with established characters and brands throughout our entire career, from The Chronicles of Riddick to The Darkness and Wolfenstein, and have consistently managed to bring new depth while keeping them true to what made the originals so good. The other aspect of this is how our friendship and respect for each other have grown over the years as sister studios under the ZeniMax umbrella.

I still must admit though, that I was quite surprised when Todd asked me if we would be interested in developing a new Indiana Jones game. Surprised, but also deeply honored. For many of us here at MachineGames, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark™ was one of those magic childhood movie moments, and getting the opportunity to work with a character like Indiana Jones was mind-blowing, to say the least.

Q: For Jens Andersson, this isn’t the first time to work on something within the Indiana Jones IP. Reflecting on this, what does Indiana Jones mean to you? And what sort of influence has Indiana Jones had on your career overall?

Andersson: I had the pleasure to spend a couple of years at LucasArts and ILM in San Francisco. It was truly an amazing experience, and it not only allowed me to peek behind the curtain – it also increased my respect for the Indiana Jones and Star Wars franchises as well as all the people behind them. The amount of thought and love that goes into creating new stories in those worlds is staggering. While my ambition for going there was to work on Indiana Jones, I sadly never got the opportunity to do so. So, there’s a feeling of redemption with being able to work on Indiana Jones and The Great Circle™ now working at MachineGames here in Sweden. For me, Indiana Jones personifies adventure, and much of why I want to develop video games is to be able to create adventures that wouldn’t be otherwise possible.

Q: What did the first week, first month, and first year of the project look like?

Torvenius: Research, coffee, and iteration. Throughout the production cycle, we have iterated a lot when it comes to the content we develop. Constantly trying to push the envelope in terms of experience and design. We have, since the very early days of the production cycle, been in close collaboration with representatives at Lucasfilm Games, constantly sharing our vision for the game.

Q: Narrative-wise, how much has changed from Todd Howard’s initial pitch? How much of “MachineGames” were you able to add to the pitch and overall story?

Gustafsson: Todd had long nurtured this idea of a story around this mysterious Great Circle, and we developed the story in-house at MachineGames in collaboration with Todd based on his idea. Very early on, we decided to use Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark as our key reference, and we used the statement “We want you to feel like Indiana Jones” as the number one development goal. Studying Indy as a character, getting a deeper understanding of his personality, and figuring out where he was in life between Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade became our primary focus working ourselves through the story. The help and support from Lucasfilm Games with their massive knowledge of everything Indy has also been invaluable to really get to the depth of Indiana Jones and create a personal and interesting journey for him.

Q: What do you think has changed the most from the initial concept to the version of Indiana Jones and The Great Circle that we’ll have at launch?

Gustafsson: We don’t usually make those big changes to be honest. Once we have gone through writing that first story synopsis, we tend to be very good at sticking to our plan. In retrospect, there are lots and lots of changes, for sure, but those are much more in the details of specific features and beats rather than the overarching goal of the full experience.

Q: On the surface, Indiana Jones and The Great Circle seems to be a very different game from past MachineGames titles like Wolfenstein . How has this changed your approach to development?

Gustafsson: Yes, this is a game that is very different, at least from what we have done previously here at MachineGames. In many ways, I think this game is closer to our older Starbreeze days – games like The Chronicles of Riddick – than the Wolfenstein games. Aside from switching between first and third-person perspectives, the main differences are a more open mission structure, adventure first with a lot of exploration and puzzles, and our first ever teen-rated game where the matinee aspect and making a game for all has been much more important than skill-based action and shooting.

Overall, we have needed to prove out several new systems and features and while there have been many challenges during development, I’m proud of the results and what the team has accomplished with this game that I think stands out as something unique and different, not only to us, but also to everyone playing it.

Working With the Legendary Indiana Jones

Q: When you think back on internal playtests, do any fun stories come to mind? Anything in particular you want to see players experience (without going into spoilers, of course)?

Andersson: It’s always tough to objectively evaluate how good your game is. Most teams often work with the same test level or snippet of the game over and over, trying to improve a specific aspect of the game. It’s sometimes only at the end of the project that people really PLAY the game they’ve been working on. At MachineGames, we have a large portion of the team play through the full game at the end of the project to help with balancing and finding any remaining issues. One of my favorite moments was when a developer who had different thoughts and opinions on some of the choices we had made, played the game through, he wrote this lovely post about how playing it completely changed his mind. While playtests are primarily used to find issues and identify where we can potentially make things better, that kind of validation certainly made my day.

I’ve spent a ton of time in the playtest room for this project, but there are a lot of things that I still really love seeing. One of them is when the tester comes up to a spot with both a frying pan and a rifle; in 99% of the cases, the player will pick the frying pan – because that’s just more fun and the Indy thing to do. I’m still fascinated that we managed to make a game where this happens.

Q: Which of the films in the series inspired you the most? Were there any particular scenes/moments you drew from?

Torvenius: All of the movies produced in the 80s have been of great reference to us, but the one we have dialed in on a tad bit more is Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. There are several reasons for this; one and the most obvious one is that it was the first time the world got to know of Indiana and met him as a character. It is the first and to us at MachineGames, one of the most original and true representations of him as a character. And since our ambition has been from the very get-go, to create a representation of the old “classic” Indy as we possibly can, it felt very natural to look at this movie for reference. It is also a masterpiece and a really solid schoolbook example when it comes to cinematography, composition, use of color, framing, set designs, you name it. Everything that an exciting adventure set in the 30s filmed in the 80s needs!

There are scenes and moments from all the three first movies where we have drawn inspiration, and it is hard to single out one specific scene. We have really been dissecting the movies and trying to capture his charming smile, his resourcefulness, and very human ways of walking and running, jumping over chasms, or just how to throw a good punch in an enemy’s face!

Q: Did anything from the Dial of Destiny factor into The Great Circle , or was it too far into development when the latest movie was released?

Torvenius: We have been developing the game in close collaboration with Lucasfilm Games to make sure we built an authentic Indy experience. We weren’t even aware that the movie was in the making when we started to develop the game at MachineGames. The entire team did go to the cinema and watch it! Great fun and a very cool Indy movie!

Q: The Great Circle has naturally drawn a lot of comparisons to the Tomb Raider and Uncharted franchises, with the Indiana Jones IP inspiring both of them. In turn, has anything from these franchises served as an inspiration or influence for The Great Circle ? What do you think sets it apart from them as well?

Gustafsson: These are both fantastic series of games and it’s hard not to be influenced by the quality and execution of the titles coming out of those developers. There are definitely a few things that set us apart though, not only the obvious first-person perspective, but our non-linear structure that is more grounded in player movement and combat, as well as the overall pacing of the game. Those things differ quite a lot. It will be very interesting to see how players will react to them and experience the MachineGames version of an Indiana Jones adventure. Also, a bit scary but we all want to bring something new to the table, and we shouldn’t shy away from doing that, even if there are some unknowns attached to it.

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