Indiana Jones and the Great Circle may have what an Indy game needs

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has all the Indy trademarks you’d expect: action, adventure, the archaeologist’s iconic whip and fedora, and a long list of Nazi chuckleheads begging for a knuckle sandwich. The game will have tombs to raid, ancient mysteries to solve, and artifacts to collect.

But Wolfenstein developer MachineGames’ take on Indiana Jones seems to have something incredibly difficult to capture without having direct access to Harrison Ford: charm.

At Gamescom this week, MachineGames and publisher Bethesda Softworks are showing off new gameplay from their upcoming Indiana Jones video game, which Polygon got to see in advance. Two moments stood out to me from watching that new gameplay because of their impressive ability to capture Indy’s character and charisma:

These may seem like small elements in an incredibly ambitious game — MachineGames calls The Great Circle “by far the biggest game we’ve done” — but they matter for a character with a giant, scene-consuming personality like Indiana Jones.

Even in first-person moments, you can feel Indy’s charm radiating, especially during the excitement that comes from a well-earned discovery. This is a game of puzzle-solving and unlocking mysteries, and Indy will have two instruments that aid him in that regard during his adventure: a journal full of notes, maps, and clues that fills out over time, and a camera with which he can snap photos of important discoveries (which will in turn lead to more discoveries). MachineGames calls the camera “one of the key gameplay mechanics” in The Great Circle. Players will find “clever, unexpected uses” for all of Indy’s tools, the developer says, including that camera and his iconic whip.

The whip can be used in combat to attack and disarm foes, and for traversal. Expect lots of climbing and swinging (which is shown in third-person view, unlike the rest of the game), as well as opportunities to lash Nazi soldiers with the whip. There’s gunplay, of course, but much of the one-on-one combat moments we saw were some combination of whip and fistfighting. Indy can block, parry, and dole out combinations of punches, all of which hit with the meaty thwack heard in the Indiana Jones movies. MachineGames says that pacifists can bypass some of these encounters by carefully using stealth and the environment to sneak around Indy’s enemies.

The story of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is set between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, and features a familiar structure: Adolf Hitler’s forces, led by Nazi psychologist Emmerich Voss, are chasing artifacts of great power, and only Indy can stop them. Jones teams up with an Italian journalist named Gina Lombardi, who has a personal stake in their journey. In the gameplay shown at Gamescom, we saw Indy and Gina exploring tombs together, defying deadly traps and solving ancient puzzles — and maybe celebrating a victory a little too early, as what appeared to be a successful attempt at snatching a prized relic triggered an even deadlier trap.

MachineGames appears to be placing a great emphasis on The Great Circle’s puzzles, which it says are “designed to fit seamlessly in the world.” The ones we were shown appeared to be pretty simple, tasking the player with surveying the environment and studying Indy’s journal for leads. One involved breaking parts of the environment to access a hidden room, and then using switches to unlock a mechanism. The puzzle in which Gina was involved seemed more complex, but she quickly — maybe too quickly — offered a helping hint about how to solve it.

I doubt Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will live and die by its puzzles. Instead, the more memorable moments of escaping certain death, sneaking through Nazi-infested compounds, and enjoying the thrill of discovery, both with and as Indiana Jones, seem like where MachineGames’ game will shine. After seeing more of Indy’s new game, I’m optimistic the Wolfenstein studio can pull it off.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is coming to Windows PC and Xbox Series X on Dec. 9. A PlayStation 5 version is slated for release in spring 2025.