The official announcement of Indiana Jones and The Great Circle was a highlight of Microsoft's recent Xbox Developer Direct presentation. Despite announcements for other anticipated releases like Avowed, Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, and Visions of Mana, the presence of Indiana Jones in such an ambitious gaming project stole the show.

Indiana Jones and The Great Circle is being spearheaded by MachineGames, a studio with a proven track record in the first-person shooter genre. MachineGames is clearly using the breadth of its prior knowledge to full effect with The Great Circle, and the studio's past success with the Wolfenstein series seems to have perfectly informed The Great Circle in more ways than one.

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Indiana Jones and The Great Circle's Place on the Timeline Explained

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has been revealed, and every facet of it hearkens back to golden age Indy - including its place on the timeline.

MachineGames' Woflenstein Experience is a Perfect Fit For Indiana Jones and The Great Circle

Indiana Jones and The Great Circle's latest footage at the Xbox Developer Direct did not hold back, showcasing a lot of core game mechanics as well as some stunning cinematics. The presentation gave fans a glimpse at using Indy's iconic whip for exploration and subduing enemies, as well as the fascinating blend of first-person and third-person perspectives that the game employs.

The announcement also portrayed the respect that the game is showing to the Indiana Jones films, with ancient artifacts, Nazi enemies, and an excellent Harrison Ford impression by Troy Baker taking center stage. It is clear that MachineGames is having to innovate on its past formulas for such a bold project, but the presence of Nazis as the main antagonist force of The Great Circle is right at home for the studio.

MachineGames' Wolfenstein Experience Can Inform The Great Circle's Nazi Villains

MachineGames has led the Wolfenstein franchise since 2014, when it launched a soft reboot of the IP with Wolfenstein: The New Order. The studio has gone on to develop the following Wolfenstein titles since then, putting the IP back on the map as an engaging and action-packed FPS franchise:

• Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
• Wolfenstein: The New Colossus
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood
• Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot

Of course, Nazis are at the very core of Wolfenstein as a franchise. MachineGames' tenure of the IP showcases an alternate timeline where Nazi Germany won the Second World War and took over the United States. MachineGames' Wolfenstein reshaped B.J. Blazkowicz as a terrifying one-man army fighting against Nazi tyranny, with the recent installments to the franchise being defined by the brutal and creative ways that the player can dispose of the Nazi threat.

Indiana Jones and The Great Circle Uses the Best Parts of Wolfenstein

Using a huge arsenal of weapons, cybernetic enhancements, and a trusty hatchet, the combat of Wolfenstein's new identity is arguably its strong point, and this is something that MachineGames has clearly carried over to Indiana Jones and The Great Circle. Being set between Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, most theories currently point to the upcoming game being set in 1937, before the Second World War but still at a time when the Nazi Party was very much in control of Germany.

In true Indiana Jones fashion, the Nazis seem to be chasing the same ancient mystery as the iconic explorer in The Great Circle, with the trailer showing some bombastic whip and gun related combat with this in mind. The slapstick ways in which Indy can trip Nazis with his whip seems straight out of the Wolfenstein playbook, and it already seems that MachineGames is using its past experience wisely in this regard.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle releases in 2024 for PC and Xbox Series X/S.

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