JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH: THE HIDDEN SCIENCE OF INDIANA JONES AND THE GREAT CIRCLE

Here’s a snippet from it for your reading pleasure. Adventure, mystery, uncharted artefacts: The next Indiana Jones game, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, is on the way. The seventh instalment in the adventure series, it will follow some as-yet unknown player character through some as-yet undiscovered setting in search of something at which the as-yet unnamed protagonist will have to as-yet fumble before they make their as-yet unknown escape. It’s a mystery when this game will be released. A Mystery.

THE JOURNEY UNFOLDS: AN INTRIGUING GLIMPSE

During the Xbox Games Showcase 2024, a trailer drop left gaming fans salivating. When the veil was pulled back, and we got to be a fly on the wall as we watched Frostbitten battleships side-swiping through the Himalayan mountains to Indiana Jones being cut off by one hundred Nazis on a paved path, the whirlwind of nonstop dialogue and improv felt as cinematic and awe-inspiring as the first few Indiana Jones films.

DIVING DEEPER INTO GAMEPLAY

Between punches and whips and – unusual for Indy – a frying-pan to the face, there were tantalising glimpses of the action to come. Unlike MachineGames’ earlier first-person shooters, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is beginning to look like a deliriously fun blend of action and adventure, with shooting taking a back seat to whip-cracking exploration and fist fighting.

THE JOURNEY’S PATH: A QUEST ACROSS THE GLOBE

With Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Last Crusade (1989) as bookends, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle provides for an adventure of world geography proportions. From the mystical Sukhothai temples in Thailand to the pyramids of Egypt and the annihilating Himalayas, Indy traverses the globe in hot pursuit of the exact location of a hoarded artifact stolen from Marshall College. Accompanying him is the intrepid journalist Gina Lombardi.

MACHINEGAMES' NEW ADVENTURE

Spinning out of the legacy of Wolfenstein and Quake, MachineGames’ new Indiana Jones and the Great Circle game takes one of the cinema’s greatest heroes – and one of gaming’s most beloved rogues – on what promises to be a new path for the world-renowned studio.

A DATE WITH DESTINY: GAME PASS AND LAUNCH SPECULATIONS

The actual date of release remains a secret, but one thing we know for sure is that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will be available on day one as part of the Game Pass on the 15th of June in the year 2024. This will enable a huge number of gamers to play in a world where such thrills await.

WHY THIS JOURNEY MATTERS

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a long time coming, and the buzz ahead of its release is more than fevered hype for another game. It’s the realisation that, after all these years, the games industry finally has the tools to deliver on all the elements that made adventure games such compelling pieces of interactive entertainment in the first place: a convincing, involving mask into which the creators have woven the faded tapestry of historical legend; a landscape full of danger, ready to spring pitfalls on the hapless player; and, most of all, that rush of open-ended discovery, the prospect of probing further into the unknown.

EXPLORING THE ESSENCE OF THE JOURNEY

That’s what it’s like to go on a journey, and what it’s like to go on an Indiana Jones journey: it’s an invitation into a world ‘out there’, to an attempt to solve some mysterious problem in the past, to a confrontation of dangers and then perhaps a triumphant discovery and a greater knowledge of the world, along with the exhilarating thrill of it all. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is, of course, exactly this kind of game.

But ultimately, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a tribute to the adventurer within us all, to the sense of wonder and curiosity that sets us off exploring, learning and triumphing over everything. Until we learn more and ultimately watch the film, all we can say for certain is that the journey of Indiana Jones continues to beckon, and it’s going to be a wild ride into the heart of adventure.