Game Design Trends in Indiana Jones and The Great Circle
What Game Design Trends Were Used for the Upcoming Indiana Jones Game?
A few years ago, the Wolfenstein series developer MachineGames faced the biggest challenge – to revive the pop culture’s most recognizable adventure with the release of Indiana Jones and The Great Circle. But they’re not just making another old-school action game. This time they are focused on delivering the same ingenious vibe of Indiana Jones as a cult character.
One of the best things is how the team changed their approach to game design. Their task was to implement the latest trends that are relatable to players but not cliché at the same time. They did an inspiring and hard work proving the status of the best 3D environment design company.
That is why Indiana’s moves and interactive situations are so diverse – they are based on thoughtful and deep game mechanics that combine the elements of FPS, immersive sim, stealth, puzzle and action. By the way, we recommend you to check the latest video about the development of The Great Circle.
The game is released on December 8, 2024, as we have already mentioned in our previous post about the Indiana Jones game.
The Change of Perspective
During the detailed interview for the GameDeveloper platform, the MachineGames team of game designers led by the experienced creator Jens Andersson we’ve learned a few interesting things about the company’s approach to the game design.
The first thing you notice about the game is the unusual perspective for a AAA adventure game. After watching the very first teaser of The Great Circle, we’ve assumed the game will resemble the Uncharted or Tomb Raider games. But MachineGames changed the perspective…literally. The Great Circle will be a first-person action game with stealth, puzzle-solving, and immersive elements. Some gamers on Reddit were excited, while others remained skeptical. But the following gameplay demonstrations proved that skeptics were wrong.
Improvisation Leads the Gameplay
Besides the FPS perspective, the game’s core mechanics is all about the freedom of exploration and improvisation. You can use the whip, gun or your knuckles to defeat bad Germans during World War II. The game looks and feels authentic to the classic trilogy of movies. Even the main characters have Harrison Ford’s appearance, including the iconic smirk and hat (that is also part of game mechanics).
For now, the most appealing thing about The Great Circle’s game design is the natural charisma of our main protagonist. All his actions seem natural and fitting in this world. You can grab a bottle to beat the enemy around the corner or act like a ghost to infiltrate the required place unnoticed. Each decision doesn’t feel forced. The Great Circle is a very replayable game because every gaming situation can be solved in various ways.
Immersive Adventure
The narrative centers around the global search for treasure straight from Marshall College through Northern Africa and the Vatican while the Nazis threaten our brave protagonist, who wears a hat. But unlike most action games, The Great Circle doesn’t play only with a linear narrative, though the game won’t include the vast open-world locations.
Instead, game designers offer you the “infinite” sandbox-style levels where players get to decide how they will discover the secrets, defeat bad guys, and receive the huge prize at the end…hopefully. If you have played Dishonored games, then you should better understand what is expected in The Great Circle. We hope to see immersion in Indy’s world from the narrative point of view with the vast freedom of improvisation.
Inspiration Sources
According to the team’s interview, they had many sources of inspiration besides the classic movies about the adventures of Indy. For example, the tactical elements when you have to act smart and curious about the surroundings were inspired by the retro LucasArts adventure games – think of The Fate of Atlantis. The idea of the core game design was to “reinvent the classic adventure”.
Back in the days, the veterans of the team worked at The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. And they took the approach to immersive narrative and level design straight from this game. Indiana will have to do both acrobatic moves and go stealthy to go through the complex levels.
The designers perfectly understood the dangers of designing massive, explorable spaces, such as the pyramids of Giza. Yet they won’t make you to do something cliché – explore each new level naturally, with freedom of choice and thrill of adventure.
About the Game Design Trends We Could See in the Future Indiana Jones Games
That approach of MachineGames to the game design in Indiana Jones and The Great Circle inspires and amazes us. Hopefully, this game will be the first installment in a huge franchise in the future.
And what game design trends we could see in the upcoming titles:
- More space for the player’s improvisation;
- More exploration mechanics from the lore’s perspective;
- More liberty and free-roaming;
- Sandbox could be larger with various locations to visit;
- More diverse gear for the signature style of combat of Indy;
- Combat mechanics can turn out to be deeper as well;
- Spontaneous solve-the-problem-quickly situations for the game’s thrill;
Surely, there are the wishes we as players want to implement in real video games. Keep on reading our blog – here we talk about current and upcoming gaming titles!
