There's a good chance you'll continue to forget this, just like we did. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle It's a first-person game. Whenever we see any footage, it's a jarring moment to remember that this isn't a remake of the game Tomb Raider or Undiscoveredbut instead it places us directly inside Dr. Jones's head. This is made even worse by the fact that most of what we see in the trailers constantly jumps to cinematic third-person views, considering what an odd angle that is when trying to show off the gameplay. But now we've seen ten minutes of in-game footage, it's starting to make more sense.
At Gamescom this week, developer MachineGames, the force behind games like this one from 2014, Wolfenstein: The New Order and the sequel described what had been shown before as emphasizing their approach to “building a compelling narrative full of twists and turns, full of exciting scenes.” Today, though, we're going to see the mysterious “gameplay.” They wanted to show “what it's like to play as Indiana Jones and experience his adventure, to see it through his eyes.” So it's perhaps unfortunate that this is immediately followed by more footage of a grave robber smashing an ancient statue to recover a hidden tool, all staged, from a third-person perspective.
This continues as Indy's thieving causes traps to be triggered, doors to close, and the room to fill with sand. But lo and behold, a tall window finally comes within reach, and here, at last, we see the world through the eyes of the one in the hat, and leap into a series of scripted slips and slides as the temple collapses around him.
OK, I'm being mean, but they've set me up. After this, we finally get to see actual footage of the game as it was meant to be experienced, and it's much more controlled and thoughtful than I expected. At some points, it felt more like a first-person adventure game, with Indy scouring scenes for clues, picking up objects to examine, and trying to piece together where he needs to be. And where he needs to be is to stop his evil Nazi rival, explorer Emmerich Voss, from finding a set of artifacts and returning them to his Fuhrer.
It all starts when Voss breaks into the University of Massachusetts and steals one such relic, and we try to figure out what he's up to. After the theft, we see Indy collecting photos, going through papers, taking photos to reveal more details about various objects and areas, and arguing with Gina, an Italian journalist who is only interested in accompanying him to find his sister.
But it's not all about wandering through ancient ruins and the halls of the academy. The other most joyful recurring theme we're shown is hitting bad guys in the back of the head with a shovel. There seems to be a strong emphasis on improvisation, with objects lying around in the world that can be picked up and used as a one-time advantage. For example, these shovels shatter at the handle after being hit on an unsuspecting head, and Indy tosses the remains aside. The same goes for the metal rods used to pry loose bricks from walls, or the wands thrown off cliffs into rock walls and then swatted away by Indy's whip.
Of course, the shovels weren't the only fighting tools. The main focus was on fistfights, which played out like a sort of boxing minigame, with you and your opponent trading punches, trying to block, and generally sniping. These moments would usually start with Indiana using his whip to snap a friend's wrist and knock them out, then boxing them as they recovered, trading punches until one of you went down.
Speaking of Indy getting knocked down, one of the highlights of the footage shown saw our hero lose a fight and fall to the ground, but thanks to True Grit, a skill that was later acquired and added to his skill tree, he was able to pick himself up with a last-ditch effort to reach for his iconic hat and give it one more try. Many, many Indiana Jones.
It's also worth noting that Indy's perspective is stubbornly not first person. When he climbs, he switches to third person, oversized like one Tomb Raider The game where Lara Crofts climbs vines and climbs ledges. As if… there could be a better perspective? But the insistence on “seeing through her eyes” wins out. As you experience greater challenges, there'll be a combination of the two, as you climb around vast obstacles to solve complex puzzles. At one point we see Doc Jones pouring wine into ancient bowls to reveal hidden numbers, then finding ways to reach a large raised frieze of Jesus and adjusting levers to match the code.
Honestly, watching the footage and realizing that this is a slower, more focused game than the frenetic cutscenes we've seen before implied made me that much more excited to play it. Sneaking into a room, ker-blamming a baddie with gardening equipment, and then using a whip to kwa-ping a weapon out of another enemy's hand looks seriously awesome, especially when that kind of action is interspersed with both exploration and puzzle-solving. As audio director Pete Ward puts it, “The focus of this game is adventure,” and the desire for players to find their own uses for the tools the game has to offer.
After seeing these images, I'm even more excited to go back to 1937 to see how well this mix of approaches can come together, especially with the good news that Troy Baker's Harrison Ford impersonation looks much better than I previously thought. This could…maybe…something to really get excited about. I still don't know why the apartment is so great, though.