Xbox Games Showcase Deep Dive | Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

ANNOUNCER: Ratings for games in this podcast are pending.

MALIK PRINCE: Welcome back to The Official Xbox Podcast, the only podcast coming to you from inside Xbox. And all this week we've been diving deep into the games you've seen at the Xbox Game Showcase. And if you missed one from earlier in the week, don't worry. Be sure to check them out at youtube.com/xbox, Spotify, or wherever you download your podcasts. And this week, we are wrapping up in a massive way. Joining us today are Jerk Gustafsson and John Jennings, joining us remotely from MachineGames in Sweden, beautiful Sweden, to talk to us about that new trailer for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Gentlemen, how are you doing today?

JOHN JENNINGS: Yeah, pretty good. Nice to be here.

JERK GUSTAFSSON: It's good. Thank you.

MALIK PRINCE: I mean, I imagine you all are feeling great coming off the showcase. Everyone's excited to see more about Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, so we're going to get into all of that. The inspiration for the game, the plot, the gameplay, all of it, in just a little bit. But we're going to start off by telling us a little bit about who you are, what you do on the team. John, let's start with you.

JOHN JENNINGS: Yeah. My name is John Jennings. I'm production director at MachineGames.

JERK GUSTAFSSON: And my name is Jerk Gustafsson. I'm the game director at MachineGames. So nice to meet you all.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah. Well, we're so excited to have you all here, again, to talk about the game. I want to start-- we're going to get into everything in just a second, but let's start with talking about the new trailer for the game that premiered at the showcase. One, tell us a little bit about what went into it and how you're feeling post-showcase.

JERK GUSTAFSSON: I feel-- you know, obviously it's exciting times. I feel good about it. And, you know, it's hard to focus on anything else in the game now. We're getting closer to the final phase of development. So these beats when we get to share our work with the world is very exciting for us. The best part for me is to see the engagement from the team, sharing reactions, comments, and articles, all of these things. It just makes us all more motivated just to deliver a great game, which we will.

JOHN JENNINGS: Whenever the trailers come out, it's one of the most exciting things for me is just seeing the energy that hits the team, the enthusiasm. You know? We put so much love and energy into the things we show that getting to actually share it with the world is always great. You just get a big buzz and a lift in the team's energy after that, which is great.

MALIK PRINCE: Like you said, I imagine working on a game for years and finally getting that feedback from the fans and the excitement, all the passion that you poured into it. I actually want to dive into the passion real quick, because on your website, on MachineGames' website, it says that you only make games that you're passionate about, which is something that, as a player, you want your creators to feel. And so what was it about Indiana Jones where you were like, let's go after it, this makes us passionate, we are excited to tackle such an iconic franchise?

JERK GUSTAFSSON: I think it goes for pretty much everything we do. Obviously, it's very important for us to have-- or to work with games that we feel very passionate about. Because it's this type of industry we're in when we focus so much on the creative aspect of things, so we really want to make sure that whatever we do, it's something that the team can really feel strong about and make sure that the team feel very motivated in building. So I think all of that is super important to us to make sure that we have the right projects lined up for the future. And Indiana Jones is a fantastic brand and such a classic adventure game, so it's just an honor to be able to work on it.

JOHN JENNINGS: Yeah.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah.

JOHN JENNINGS: Who wouldn't want to work on an Indiana Jones game?

MALIK PRINCE: Right.

JERK GUSTAFSSON: Exactly.

MALIK PRINCE: I mean, everyone is excited about it, but because it has this rich history in pop culture and everything. And so, you know, let's just jump into it. Let's talk about the trailer. Can you give us a little bit of an overview of the overall storyline in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle? What's the central conflict or quest that players will embark on?

JERK GUSTAFSSON: So the story kicks off when an ancient relic is stolen from the college where Indiana Jones works. He's determined to track down the thief, and Indy stumbles into this ancient conspiracy involving the theory of the Great Circle, as we call it. A Great Circle is a strange alignment of ancient sites around the globe and a set of mysterious artifacts connected to it. But Indy isn't the only one in search for answers. The enemy are scouring the world for these artifacts, believing that they hold some kind of power. And to stop them, there's only one thing you can do, and that is to find the artifacts first. And that's a very high level setup of the story for the game.

MALIK PRINCE: I want to dive in a little bit deeper into that. Now, there's so many different ways, as you mentioned, that you could go with Indiana Jones. What was it about the Great Circle narrative that drew you to wanting to explore that kind of theme a little bit more?

JERK GUSTAFSSON: It actually started with an idea from Todd Howard. He had been thinking for years about creating a story around the concept of the Great Circle. So when we got this opportunity to work on the Indiana Jones game, it felt like the perfect match. And like I said, it's this mysterious anchored in history and it also spans the world, which is a great thing.

It's just this perfect starting point for a globetrotting narrative where, in a way, the course was already in a way set for us, and exploring the meaning of the Great Circle and how we could use it for an intriguing story has been really fun as well, especially the process of figuring out why the bad guys are pursuing the truth about it and why Indy is trying to stop them. This specifically is something that we always put a lot of effort into, just a goal of tying the story to our hero's own personal journey.

MALIK PRINCE: Even the decision to do first person, right, for example, and really basing the player as they are Indiana Jones-- we'll talk about that maybe a little bit later. But exactly what you said, those kind of narrative decisions and making sure the player feels like Indiana Jones is pivotal to that in making it an authentic experience. Can you talk a little bit more about the prep? Obviously, this is an IP that has been around for decades at this point, so you obviously want to make sure you get it right. Can you talk a little bit about the prep and research that went into making sure that you were bringing an authentic experience?

JERK GUSTAFSSON: In this case, of course, we had a lot of materials to go through, and we spent countless of hours just rewatching the films, especially the two movies, I think, that are closest to the game, which is Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade. And looking at the movies both from a broad stroke perspective to get into the mood and why, but also to some extent, scrutinizing them for details and the small hooks that are key to the identity of everything that is Indiana Jones.

And in addition, then, we have one of the best resources through our partnership with Lucasfilm games, and working together with them on this project has been invaluable, just this cave of knowledge about the character, which has been fantastic. And Lucasfilm has been excited about the project from day one and have been incredibly supportive and helpful in bringing the story and the character in Indiana Jones to life through not just our story, but also through gameplay.

JOHN JENNINGS: Yeah. It's been great having access to writers, directors from Lucasfilm, and people who've worked with the Indiana Jones property for decades, having their input. I mean, some of these people know everything that has ever been written about Indy, and having them to bounce ideas off and get some of their own input has been hugely, hugely invaluable. I mean, our writers are huge Indy fans as well and just been scouring all of the countless wikis that are out there written about everything, all of the comics, additional books, and so forth, just to build up their knowledge.

Other things as well. I mean, we managed to get access into some of the Lucasfilm archives as well, which has been-- for Indy fans, has been an absolute dream come true to get access to some of these things that perhaps not so many people have seen, but our artists have been wanting to make sure everything is authentic as possible. We bought replicas of Indy's famous fedora made by the original hat makers who made the original prop from the first film, proper recreations of his iconic jacket, and so forth, just to make sure everything is absolutely spot on.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah. I mean, I don't envy you all. One, the audacity and the creative audacity to go after such a franchise, but then the pressure of knowing, we can't get anything wrong if someone's playing the game who's seen every movie you mentioned, like going on the wikis, who knows everything about the game, the pressure of that must be overwhelming. But I think you all are rising to the occasion perfectly.

And I'm thinking about the fact that you all at MachineGames have built amazing worlds in your own right. But for this one, as we've been talking about, you're working with Lucasfilm Games. Can you tell us a little bit about what some of the differences are there from a storytelling perspective and a script writing perspective? Obviously you're working alongside them, but does it help as a game developer to have that source of truth versus going super creative with the games that you've made previously?

JERK GUSTAFSSON: Yeah. It absolutely does. And it's a little bit different, this game, for us in many ways. Usually we're used to have this heavy weapons, gun blazing shooters. This is a little bit different. It's we are making a proper adventure game here, and it's also a game that is a little bit more directed towards a wider audience, a bit of a new thing for us.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, I imagine.

JERK GUSTAFSSON: And overall, when sketching out the foundation of what our gameplay was going to focus on, we pretty much always do this, but in this case we focused a little bit more on it. We prioritized that we had to stay true to Indy's personality and who he is above all. He is a normal human being. He's not this caped superhero or he's not a super hero hero, as we like to say. He is flawed. He makes mistakes. He stumbles. There is weight to his movement.

We have this gritty pulp edge to the action. But at the same time, he's also rather athletic. He is an excellent fighter, and he also have an enormous amount of luck as well. And at the same time, he's the best archaeologist in the world. So focusing on all of these things, in a way, it makes the gameplay feel in line with this matinee action. You know? These classic matinee action adventures that the movies were celebrating, something I think Indy himself also personifies in a way.

MALIK PRINCE: 100%. And I think if we look back, you mentioned it's your first team game and Wolfenstein, obviously you mentioned a little bit guns blazing, a little bit of a different feel. I imagine having a little bit, as you've been saying, a little bit more of a narrower focus allows you to really dive in a little bit deeper into the story and really focus on almost building a game a little bit-- I don't want to say more creatively, but just differently such that the players are still having a great experience. I want to talk a little bit about the antagonist that we've seen a little bit, the developer direct, and a little bit more in this trailer. Tell us a little bit about the foes and the main baddie in this game.

JOHN JENNINGS: Yeah. We saw quite a lot of Emmerich Voss in the Developer Direct trailer. We see a little bit of him in this one, but the character we focus more on perhaps is Victor Gantz. He's a colonel in the Wehrmacht who's overseeing the dig that's going on at the pyramids of Giza, where Voss is looking for the relics.

Gantz is a bit different to Voss. He's not part of the special antiquities division. He's quite the opposite. He actually dislikes Voss's strange obsession with ancient relics. They're almost uneasy allies, in some ways. So Voss is kind of a sharp eyed, very intelligent, manipulative character. Gantz, on the other hand, he's a bit more of a strong man. He's absolutely devoted to the cause. He will do anything for the cause. I mean, as we saw in the trailer, he's got an extreme fear of heights, but he put that aside because it's needed for the mission. He's drank the Kool-Aid.

This trait is something which Voss takes advantage of a little bit throughout the game, uses it to manipulate Gantz a little bit to do what he wants to turning him into the perfect sort of ultra henchman to pit against his main rival of Indy. There's a lot of fun moments between Gantz and Voss in the game. They're fun characters. Quite different, but two good villains to play off against Indy.

MALIK PRINCE: All right. So Indiana Jones movies have always been about globetrotting adventures going across the world. We saw battleships up in the Himalayas and some moments of other areas in the trailer. Are you able to tell us a little bit about the locations that we'll visit in the Great Circle?

JOHN JENNINGS: Yeah. As you said, it really is a globetrotting adventure for Indy. It's an important part. All the movies have that, right? They're not set in one location. So as you saw in the trailer, we do spend some time in the Himalayas. We'll get to see some familiar locations for Indy, as you'd have seen in some of the earlier trailers, and also a little bit in this one. We get to walk around the corridors of Marshall College, which is like a dream come true for Indy fans.

We spend time in the Vatican, which is a cool new location that hasn't really come across in the Indy lore before. We spent time over in Egypt and the pyramids, which is a must have for an Indiana Jones game, right? We also get down into the jungles in Thailand, particularly in Sukhothai, and there's a couple of other locations as well. You'll have to play the game to find out. I won't spoil everything today.

MALIK PRINCE: Well, that's what I'm saying. I'm going to be asking a ton of questions. Just trying to pull as much information out of you all as possible, so forgive me. But the fans are going to want to know. The players are going to want to know for sure. But to your point on the different locations, I feel like from a game creator perspective, that just allows you to try new gameplay mechanics in this place versus the next place.

The locations, I feel like, are so important to diversifying the experience for the player, so I'm excited to hear about that. I want to take a little bit of a detour back to the characters. We talked a little bit about the villains a little bit earlier, and in the spirit of me trying to pull as much information out of you as possible, can you tell us a little bit about the characters that are in this trailer that we may have seen in Indiana Jones before, potentially? Any others in the game that we may have seen before?

JERK GUSTAFSSON: I mean, most-- yeah, most of the characters we meet in the game are new faces. I think we have one familiar face there in the trailer as well that you probably recognize, and also because we start our story in Marshall College, it made sense to have Marcus Brody there to ground it in the familiarity of Indy's home base. We also have a couple of other classic character students on smaller cameos. But we'll have to wait and see for yourself regarding those.

MALIK PRINCE: OK. You know, I'm going to get used to that answer, I feel like, throughout this interview. But honestly, we don't want to spoil anything for anybody. We want to make sure everyone can experience it. And of course, like any game, having new characters is great and existing characters is great for folks who have seen the movies, but also for folks jumping in. They can feel like they are part of discovering new parts of the Indiana Jones universe as well. Now let's talk about gameplay. I touched on it a little bit earlier, but this game is largely in first person, though there are some parts where you're pulled out into third person view. Can you tell us a little bit about some of the gameplay experiences that players are going to take part of when they play Indiana Jones and the Great Circle?

JERK GUSTAFSSON: Yeah, sure. And I think I can go back to what we talked a little bit about previously when it comes to Indiana Jones not being this guns blazing action hero. It's something that we have been focused on a lot when it comes to gameplay. He solves problems with his mind first and really relies on smarts, not this excessive combat that we have seen or done before with the Wolfenstein games. So when you are playing the game, choosing the more authentic stealth in route or just some classic old fist fighting will be a benefit to the player, and, more times than not, also make for a very fun and challenging experience.

But in my mind, what we're asking the player to do in our game, is really to step into the shoes of the world's most famous archaeologist. And we strongly believe that the first person perspective is what makes this experience the most immersive. It allows the player to focus on the adventure, to feel like they are in there interacting with the world around them. Also, since first person games are very much part of our pedigree here at MachineGames, it felt like a natural approach for our take on Indy and a feature that will set it apart from many other action adventure games out there.

And I think it is something that brings something really unique to this game. And we also, like you mentioned as well, Malik, we do bring in this mix of first and third person gameplay just to-- we wanted to have the mix of both. The players could literally have Indy's point of view with first person allowing them to really be transported into the story. But at the same time, we felt doing third person was also important so that the player can see the iconic character, just because of that, then we are using that perspective as well throughout the entire game.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, I mean, I feel like the mix is so important, exactly to what you said. You want players to feel like they are Indiana Jones's shoes, but there are some iconic parts of any game where you kind of want to see the actual character that you're controlling, so I love that you all are doing that. Part of the reason the game looks so great was because visually it's a stunning game that you're just totally immersed in. So kudos to you all for just the design and also the perspective of the game. I do want to go to Indiana Jones himself. Now obviously when the trailer-- when we saw at the Developer Direct, people heard Indiana Jones, it does sound like him. It does look like him. But it's not him.

INDIANA JONES: If you were to draw a line through these ancient sites around the globe, you'd get a perfectly aligned circle.

MALIK PRINCE: It is actually one Troy Baker. And I think it was funny watching reaction to the Developer Direct because it was very clear that people were like, that voice sounds familiar. It sounds like Harrison Ford, but it's not. And I think quickly people found out it was Troy Baker, which is exciting. What was it like working with someone who has literally, I almost feel like, become an icon in voice acting and acting in games? What was it like working with him?

JOHN JENNINGS: Yeah, it's been great working with Troy. We spent a lot of time with him over the last few years. It was maybe an unexpected choice at first, but from the moment we watched his audition tape, we were just totally sold. He's just a great actor. He's put so much effort into the role as well. You can tell he's just this huge, huge fan of Indiana Jones. He knows so much about the films and the canon.

We've just been in a VO session with recently with him and he was improvising lines. You know, wouldn't Indy say it a bit more like this, or commenting on lines that we've written that we thought were subtle Easter eggs just for the die hard Indy fans, and he'll pick up on it straight away. Oh, yeah, that's the thing from blah, blah, blah. He just knows it. He's not faking it. But it's also not just that dialogue as well.

He's not just a voiceover actor. It's the full thing. We do full performance capture, the body, the face, and the voice all recorded at the same time. He's got the physical acting nailed down as well. He does a really, really good job of capturing the character of Indy. Specifically as well, I mean, his character in the first few movies, the earlier ones, which is where our game is set, of course, is just as it perfectly it's been. Yeah. So much fun working with Troy. Really, really good actor.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah.

JERK GUSTAFSSON: Yeah. We really found the perfect person with Troy Baker. He just captured the heart of the character so good. So we're super happy about that.

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah. I mean, I love the point that you mentioned on it being a full performance capture, because I think in some of the games that we've seen-- and of course he's used to that from games like Last Of Us and all of these other games. But that is such an important part of making sure that the player is immersed into the story. And I love the idea of Troy Baker, who is, again, a legend in the gaming space as an actor having to audition for it. But it sounds like you all went with the perfect player-- perfect voice actor here, and so really excited to hear about that. Another aspect of the iconic Indiana Jones franchise is, of course, the music. It's super important. Who do you all work with here?

JOHN JENNINGS: Yeah. The music was composed by Gordy Haab. He's composed the score for so many different Lucasfilm video games now, so he's just perfect for Indiana Jones, really. We were extremely happy when he agreed to compose our soundtrack. He's really caught the vibe of the classic John Williams scores and yeah. Yeah, fantastic composer. Really pleased for him when he won the Grammy recently.

MALIK PRINCE: Again, that is what makes it an authentic Indy experience. So kudos to you all for being able to work with him. And so at the end of the trailer, I want to jump a little bit ahead. I got to ask, we saw that boulder scene from the original Indiana Jones movie. Are we going to get to play that out a little bit?

JERK GUSTAFSSON: Well, that's unfortunately one of those things where I just have to say you have to wait and see.

MALIK PRINCE: OK. Fair.

JERK GUSTAFSSON: Again. Sorry.

MALIK PRINCE: No, that's awesome. You know, again, it leaves a little bit of mystery out there for players who are going to want to experience some things for the first time. Now, the question that I know a lot of players are wondering-- I can already see the comments in the comment section. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. When are we going to be able to play it?

JERK GUSTAFSSON: You are going to be able to play this game later this year, and we are super excited about it and very much look forward to people's reaction.

MALIK PRINCE: 2024, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. We're excited about it. John and Jerk, want to end by saying thank you so much for joining us all the way from Sweden, and we cannot wait to play the game.

JERK GUSTAFSSON: Thank you. And thank you so much for having us.

JOHN JENNINGS: Yeah, thanks, Malik. It's been fun.

MALIK PRINCE: Of course. Of course. OK, and with that, we have wrapped up our week of Xbox Showcase special episodes, from Indiana Jones and the Great Circle to Avowed, Metal Gear Solid Delta, and so much more. If you missed any of them, you know where to go. Youtube.com/xbox, or search for The Official Xbox Podcast on Spotify. And next week we'll be back to our regular scheduled programming, so we'll see you Thursday at noon Pacific. See you.