Wolfenstein Developer Is Doing More Than Just Making An Indiana Jones Game, It's Innovating A Genre

When I think of developer MachineGames, I think of dual-wielding shotguns in its Wolfenstein games, sprinting down tight corridors with guns blazing as the walls get a fresh coat of Nazi blood. After all, MachineGames' entire portfolio up to this point has been built on the brazen revival of Wolfenstein--a series of five no-holds-barred, blood-soaked action thrill-rides. And damn did it do it well. It's why I was caught by surprise when seeing its next game, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, is putting an emphasis on more methodical combat that will have you solving puzzles and using the environment as your weapon, rather than shooting your way out of every scenario and being covered in Nazi blood in the process ('tis a shame).

"It is always a big challenge to go from something known, into the unknown of what the Indiana Jones game was for us," Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's design director, Jens Andersson, told GameSpot at Gamescom 2024. "It's tough, because the way [MachineGames] is used to working--how we build levels, how we design enemies--everything is coming from this action [focus]. And now we're coming at it from a different side. So it took a long time. Like, honestly, a really long time for us at company meetings and stuff, talking about 'What is this game trying to do?'"

Don't worry, you'll still get to shoot your share of Nazis in the Great Circle, but as Indy, it's your wits, your mitts, your whip, and maybe the occasional rolling pin left on a kitchen table that will be your primary tools. In putting you in the shoes (and hat) of the globe-trotting Dr. Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones Jr., your agency as a player isn't just action, but exploration and investigation. It's a molding of genres and mechanics seldom seen all in one game, let alone a first-person one.

"I think even more for this particular game, there aren't too many references out there," Andersson said. "Like it's an adventure-first game. So what does a AAA adventure game look like today? We don't know. We had to figure it out."

The adventure-game genre is broad and rather hard to define. At one point in time, it was often linked to more traditional point-and-click games, like Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, for example. These games were heavily driven by narrative with puzzle-solving front-and-center of its design and very rarely, if at all, featured combat. Modern audiences, however, may point to the Uncharted series as a touching point for what a modern adventure game is--those are action-packed games that sees their Indiana Jones-inspired protagonist Nathan Drake mowing down hundreds of bad guys through blockbuster-sized set pieces. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle doesn't seem to fall in either category, and it even feels unfair to place it somewhere in the middle of that broad spectrum.

For game director Jerk Gustafasson, figuring out this game's identity started with a simple reminder to the team: This is a "MachineGames adventure."

"When that was mentioned in a meeting," said Andersson, "that's when a lot of the team began to say 'Oh, I see what you mean.' Like MachineGames means cinematic, immersive, action, first-person. So what's the adventure version of that?"

From there, creative director Axel Torvenius felt that meant doubling down on adventure and exploration rather than relying on the studio's tried-and-true action background. "There's a lot of slower moments. And because [they're] slower moments doesn't mean they're boring," said Torvenius. "Quite the opposite--it's very intense and exciting. It's slow-paced, but it's still high tension and filled with a sense of adventure, and that's what we've been trying to get. It's to get that balance right."

Based on the hands-off gameplay I saw, those quieter moments that Torvenius referred to are spent using Indy's camera, taking pictures of artifacts that in turn fill your journal with information. This information is vital to informing the player on where to go next or answering questions within the game's mystery. That, of course, comes with its own challenge of pacing and assisting the player on what to do and where to go, without holding their hand too much.

"How do we push the player to do something, when before, everything we did were linear corridor shooters--which sometimes opened up a little bit, but never that much--to something in game style and game pace was vastly different," said Torvenius.

It couldn't be further from what I was used to seeing this team do with its games, and it's MachineGames' full embrace of something so different that began to get me most excited for what Indiana Jones and the Great Circle could be: something genuinely fresh to the first-person genre, regardless of the Indiana Jones IP.

"The writing and the characters are front-and-center, rather than sidekicks to the action."

Jens Andersson

This is a team, after all, that's had a long lineage in the first-person genre, long before MachineGames was formed. Many of the Great Circle's team had worked together at developer Starbreeze Entertainment on games like The Darkness, and before that, the slower-paced Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, which, like Indiana Jones, relied heavily on hand-to-hand combat and stealth. The two games, while both first-person, vary greatly in gameplay. But the team's approach to its design always starts with the story first. It's, as Andersson puts it, the MachineGames process.

"It starts with the story, as trivial as that sounds," Andersson said. "We adapt everything to sort of fit around that story rather than the other way around that I think a lot of other studios do. [...] The writing and the characters are front-and-center, rather than sidekicks to the action."

It's easy to be swept up in Wolfenstein's signature run-and-gun action, but it's MachineGames' approach to storytelling and character development which made Wolfenstein's The New Order and The New Colossus so memorable for me. When I think of Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus in particular, I instantly think of its softer moments: the surprise birthday party for B.J. Blazkowicz; the memories of his childhood sweetheart; or the relationship he had with his mother. These scenes gave its characters time to breathe between the fumes of gunsmoke and made it all the more memorable for doing so.

While it's too soon to say whether MachineGames can land the same writing heights in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, it is clear at the moment that it's translating the titular character's identity exceptionally well, especially in the game's combat.

During gameplay, the player used Indy's whip to disarm an enemy, causing them to lose their balance and fall face-first into a steel barrel, knocking them out cold. It was a small and brief moment, but one that rang of slapstick comedy and gave combat its own brand of charisma. For as quick as that encounter was, achieving that goal was by no means easy for the team.

"We have this very complicated system of people being pushed into the environment. So you can use the whip to get people around," Andersson explained. "A lot of work was involved in having enemies react and catch their balance. It was a scary proposition when we started pushing for it. Everyone was not happy with us. But like this combination of simulation and animation and being able to interact with the environment and being able to pick up stuff, like it's so Indy, right?"

There's a comical pacing in its combat that feels improvisational opposed to scripted, much like some of the film franchise's most-iconic scenes, whether it's pulling a gun out to shoot the flailing swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Indy patiently waiting for the propellers of a plane to chop a Nazi to bits. It's these moments that reflect Indy as a character, and translating that organically through combat is very exciting.

Admittedly, as a hardcore Wolfenstein fan, I'm still pining for the next entry in the Blazkowicz family saga. However, I've become equally as excited to see how MachineGames expands its writing and design philosophies to story altogether, regardless of whether or not I'm an Indiana Jones fan.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is expected to release December 9 for Xbox Series X|S and PC, and it will be a day-one Game Pass release.