Indiana Jones and The Great Circle (9th December 2024 on Xbox Series X|S & PC; Spring 2025 on PS5)

[Julius]

Well here we go, looks like that Lucasfilm Games moniker is already coming into play! 

To address the elephant in the room: don't see Disney letting this be Xbox exclusive (unless they've given PlayStation something exclusive too), it just wouldn't make much sense financially. Pure speculation, but maybe the licensing agreement and Bethesda developing will mean that while it's on both platforms, but it will be available Day 1 on Game Pass? Then again, the deal doesn't finalise until June 2021, so who knows 

Also, MachineGames definitely the logical choice for shooting Nazis, though I do hope it's third person rather than first. Because a whip in first person seems like it would be difficult to get right? 

Edited August 22 by Julius

[Dufniall]

Love this little tease in his september interview, where Todd has some relics from Indiana Jones on the shelf:

[drahkon]

On 1/12/2021 at 5:07 PM, Julius said:

though I do hope it's third person rather than first

Will be interesting to see if they can pull that off, if they go for it. They definitely got first person shooting right, maybe they can make it work with Indy.

[Julius]

18 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Will be interesting to see if they can pull that off, if they go for it. They definitely got first person shooting right, maybe they can make it work with Indy.

Yeah, maybe! I'm just trying to imagine a good whip animation in first person and every time I'm just imagining the whip flailing about 

[drahkon]

9 minutes ago, Julius said:

Yeah, maybe! I'm just trying to imagine a good whip animation in first person and every time I'm just imagining the whip flailing about 

I don't see the issue. This would be hilarious/awesome in first person

Edited January 13, 2021 by drahkon

[Julius]

Title is stupid as leaked (and the Great Circle), and first-person focus with third-person elements at times confirmed. Coming late this year. 

Looks fantastic, probably only the second Series X|S first-party game I've been interested in (after Forza Horizon 5). Gordy Haab composing too? Troy Baker confirmed to be voicing Indy (that seems like a statement)? Great stuff!

Still got a long way to go, but maybe the Series X could be a solid system to pick up when on sale towards the end of the gen 

Edited January 18 by Julius

[Dcubed]

The title actually would've made sense if it were a third person game, because then it'd be coming full circle with it being a Tomb Raider ripoff, which is an Uncharted ripoff, which is a Tomb Raider ripoff, which is an Indiana Jones ripoff.

Missed opportunity that.

[Julius]

7 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

The title actually would've made sense if it were a third person game, because then it'd be coming full circle with it being a Tomb Raider ripoff, which is an Uncharted ripoff, which is a Tomb Raider ripoff, which is an Indiana Jones ripoff.

Missed opportunity that.

It's definitely one of the dumbest game titles I've seen in a while, and that's saying something 

I will say, though, while I'm generally not the biggest fan of first-person games outside of shooter-based ones, the decision to go first-person with this game is incredibly clever because it immediately differentiates itself from those other franchises you listed. I am absolutely an advocate for third-person to at least be an option in games like this which heavily emphasise others aspects of gameplay, not least because I feel like you risk shrinking your potential audience without it, but I think it works solely for that reason. I'm not sure what it is about it, but it also gives me an old school licensed game vibes in a way the modern Star Wars games, for example, haven't. 

Tangential to your point about who ripped off who, I read something yesterday where it clicked for someone that Todd's involvement made a lot of sense for them when they considered the puzzles and cave/dungeon exploration in something like Skyrim. Also had no idea he was such a big Indy fan. 

I've got to say, is a bit weird to me that you go so far as to get Harrison Ford's likeness, though, then have the game be first-person (also: so much for the franchise living on after him, I guess?). It kind of reminds me of Cyberpunk – kind of crazy to me that in a game like that with so many things you can customise about your character and "Cool" being an attribute that you can't see your character in third-person outside of hopping on a bike. Just give us the options, darn it! It's kind of crazy just how much of Xbox's major first-party content is first-person, I genuinely wonder if that decision is hurting them, even if it's probably more to the tastes of traditional PC players. 

I'm actually pretty excited for this one. Come on Xbox, after Forza Horizon 5 you've just got another 3 games to start seriously tempting me  they've got Blade too, I guess? Though I'd want to see gameplay for that first. 

[ViPeR]

I am quite mixed on this game. I love the Indy franchise, excluding Crystall Skull, but I've not actually played any games. From a story and gameplay perspective it certainly peaks my interest. The comparisons to Tomb Raider make me chuckle, as someone mentioned before who ripped off who when Indy was the probably the inspiration for Lara and Nathan's games.

The other comments about 1st vs 3rd person, well for me I respect they came to that decision for a reason. The gameplay and what the developer wants to achieve should dictate the perspective, not the genre or what other games in the genre do.

The only thing I can't shake is the facial animations. They feel a little robotic I'm not sure if it's the lip syncing being off in the trailer but even the intro where they show the villain he has a really wobbly head for some reason. Apart from that, I'm certainly interested in this one even if I'm not a fan of the Wolfenstein games happy to see what they do here.

[bob]

I'm not sure if it's the lip syncing being off in the trailer but even the intro where they show the villain he has a really wobbly head for some reason.

That just shows how villainous he is. The more villainous the bad guy, the wobblier the head.

[ViPeR]

6 hours ago, bob said:

 

 

That just shows how villainous he is. The more villainous the bad guy, the wobblier the head.

IInteresting, maybe he's possessed and it will get worse over the course of the game

[Hero-of-Time]

 

[Julius]

3 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

 

Good. From the outside looking in, this game always seemed too interesting and far too big an IP to not come to PlayStation at some point, but at the same time...man it must suck to an Xbox right now, can't help but feel a bit bad for people who've invested in the ecosystem and their future plans for things to turn out the way that they have. 

It's to be really bizarre if this is the Xbox game people were talking about being revealed at Gamescom to be ported to PlayStation, mind you, considering that it's not even out yet. 

[Julius]

December 9th for Xbox and PC...and Spring 2025 on PS5! 

Edited August 20 by Julius

[bob]

On 8/20/2024 at 12:29 AM, Julius said:

Good. From the outside looking in, this game always seemed too interesting and far too big an IP to not come to PlayStation at some point, but at the same time...man it must suck to an Xbox right now, can't help but feel a bit bad for people who've invested in the ecosystem and their future plans for things to turn out the way that they have. 

It's to be really bizarre if this is the Xbox game people were talking about being revealed at Gamescom to be ported to PlayStation, mind you, considering that it's not even out yet. 

Why would this news matter to people who have an Xbox? They still get the game...

 

There's no reason Xbox or PS users should be excited about exclusives of any kind - they are anti-consumer and only a good thing for the companies themselves. 

[Julius]

1 hour ago, bob said:

Why would this news matter to people who have an Xbox? They still get the game...

Because in the long-term, this is a game originally labelled as being exclusive to Xbox (on consoles) which is now coming to PlayStation, and so far, I'd argue, the biggest: this game isn't even released yet on Xbox, it's a big IP, and it's AAA. 

Yes, there's a gap between it releasing on Xbox and PlayStation, yes they still get the game, but announcing this move ahead of launch disincentivises anyone who might have been considering picking up an Xbox because of the exclusivity of the Indiana Jones game (I'm not sure how many people that would be of course, especially considering it's also coming to PC). This isn't the only game to move over to PS5, but I feel like it's a very significant one. 

Fewer incentives to buy a console generates less desire for people to buy the console. 

Less people then buy the Xbox. 

And it's very quickly apparent then where Xbox, at least on the hardware side, ends up in the long-term. 

That's why this news would matter to people who have an Xbox, and have invested in that ecosystem. Buying a console at launch or early on in the generation is pretty much a vote of confidence in the platform you're picking up - I'm not saying that's how it should be, but that is how it is; "I have confidence that this platform will have the games that I want", and a big part of that may be exclusive games which aren't available on the other platform.

Changing strategy midway through the generation the way they have, a huge AAA game for a massive IP like Indiana Jones going from exclusive to releasing on anything - when it might have been a reason you picked up an Xbox in the first place this gen, seeing it was announced just a couple of months into it - and I wouldn't be surprised if Xbox fans might be scratching their heads: if this, and potentially everything else, is heading over to PlayStation, they might feel like they could have got a PlayStation instead. 

1 hour ago, bob said:

There's no reason Xbox or PS users should be excited about exclusives of any kind - they are anti-consumer and only a good thing for the companies themselves. 

I agree. 

At the end of the day, though, it's not a two-way street: more and more Xbox published games are coming to PlayStation, and no PlayStation published games are coming to Xbox. 

I know some people will defend "their" console of choice - I don't really care to do that, and I feel like both have at least been pretty disappointing this gen in terms of first-party games published - but from my perspective I'm thinking more about the people who bought a console with the promise of exclusives which now, well, aren't going to be exclusive. Going into this gen, exclusives were absolutely still the name of the game, and it's why we saw PlayStation announce a new Spider-Man, a new Horizon, and a new God of War before the PS5 released, so for a company to switch up their MO in the middle of a gen I would also argue is anti-consumer (to the people who already own their console). 

[Hero-of-Time]

1 hour ago, bob said:

Why would this news matter to people who have an Xbox? They still get the game...

 

There's no reason Xbox or PS users should be excited about exclusives of any kind - they are anti-consumer and only a good thing for the companies themselves. 

Exclusives are a big part of what drives console sales, which in turn creates a healthy ecosystem for the user base. Without exclusives a system will really struggle, which is exactly what is happening with the Xbox brand. Players who have invested heavily into the Xbox ecosystem all these years are potentially looking at the end of the brand as they know it. 

[Dcubed]

Also, not that it’s particularly relevant in this case, exclusives can leverage the unique qualities of hardware/controller input that non-exclusive titles simply just can’t.

A game like Astro Bot simply couldn’t be done on any other console for instance.  If it were a multiplatform title, it’d lose everything that was special about it.