How Machine Games balanced action and comedy in the Indiana Jones video game | interview

Perhaps the biggest game of the giant Gamescom expo — which drew 335,000 fans to Cologne, Germany — was Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, a game being published this fall by Microsoft’s Bethesda division and developed by Sweden’s Machine Games.

I spoke with Axel Torvenius, creative director, and Jens Andersson, game designer at Machine Games, after seeing the preview for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Their studio made major games for Bethesda in the past like the Wolfenstein series, and now their game is coming on December 9 on the PC and the Xbox Series X/S.

It struck me that they had created an amazing first-person shooter series where you were able to kill Nazi soldiers in the most gruesome ways with the Wolfenstein games. And here they were in charge of the family-friendly mainsteam property of Indiana Jones — where you still kill Nazis.

After creating so much joy and humor from creating bloody situations with over-the-top violence, they had to find humor in a different way, based on the style and characters of the Indiana Jones franchise. The dev team had to switch gears and make a game with plenty and shooting but without blood and guts. Yet the team got over this notion very quickly.

“The most appealing thing was just being able to work on such an iconic, classic IP,” said Andersson. He added later, “It was obvious early on that certain aspects we might have indulged in earlier projects wouldn’t be a good fit for this project….This time around it’s more of a Machine Games adventure, rather than a Machine Games shooter. It’s still very much a Machine Games game.”

Indeed, the thing that the Machine Games titles share in common, they said, is the quality of the experience. The goal is to create an experience in a familar genre that is fresh while staying faithful to the franchise.

Of course, while it’s good to give players agency in a game, they should not be able to mow down everybody in sight. When in doubt on what to do in a scene, the team asked themselves, “What would Indy do?” That’s the approach the team has to getting to a game that can reach the widest audience possible.

Here’s an edited transcript of our interview. Disclosure: Devcom paid my way to Cologne, where I moderated two panels.

GamesBeat: How many years has this been in development?

Axel Torvenius: Quite a few. I think we’re somewhere in the region of four years for some people.

GamesBeat: Was there some appeal to being able to kill Nazis again?

Torvenius: It’s appealing for lots of different reasons.

Jens Andersson: The most appealing thing was just being able to work on such an iconic, classic IP. To get the opportunity to work with Lucasfilm Games on this, that’s the greatest appeal, I would say.

GamesBeat: Did any of your earlier work feel like preparation for this?

Torvenius: All your earlier work is useful for the next game you’re making. We’re bringing a lot of what we like to do into this game. This being a first-person adventure game, that’s absolutely influenced by our previous work. The story-driven approach, story being a major driving force of the game, the cinematic presentation, the immersion, all that stuff.

GamesBeat: It feels like you toned down the violence for the Indiana Jones style.

Andersson: Exactly. It became very obvious to us early on in the process, as we started dissecting the IP and take apart the character–what is this world? What is the world we’re entering? What do we want to craft within it? It was obvious early on that certain aspects we might have indulged in earlier projects wouldn’t be a good fit for this project. It was obvious in the early days, where we needed to go.

GamesBeat: How do you try to bring along all the fans who are Machine Games fans first? They’re used to the darker humor, the blood and gore from things like Wolfenstein.

Torvenius: We’ll give them lots of new, fantastic stuff.

Andersson: It’s interesting. We’ve always tried to make sure that what is true in the Machine Games core, the Machine Games DNA, is something we never step back from. Part of that DNA is the strong narrative beats, the fun gameplay, and then of course the visual storytelling comes with it. Regardless of which IP you connect those three pillars to, you still get a Machine Games game. This time around it’s more of a Machine Games adventure, rather than a Machine Games shooter. It’s still very much a Machine Games game. That’s something we’ve been very carefully trying to preserve. And then of course trying to make sure we’re also hitting the mark in terms of making sure that the existing character, the IP is represented. It feels like part of the existing world.

Torvenius: Here at Gamescom we’re showing this theater presentation. That’s what comes across. You look at it and yes, it’s a Machine Games game. At least that’s my feeling. It has a lot of shared DNA.

GamesBeat: I wonder how messed up the inspiration gets. You have Indiana Jones as the original adventurer. Then you had games like Tomb Raider and Uncharted. Now you make a game about Indiana Jones and people compare it to games that he inspired.

Andersson: People will most likely compare it to a lot of different things. But for us it’s always been–we had very clear guidance internally in terms of what I mentioned before, the Machine Games DNA, and then we had the outer framework of guiding principles. We’re working with this character and this IP. Outside of that, obviously we’re aware that we’re entering a genre of games that up until now has not really been what we do. In our minds, though, there’s no difference between making a great game in this universe compared to making great games in another universe. We’re trying to add something fresh, we feel, to the franchise as a whole. Making sure that we capture this adventure aspect of it, while still being in first person, is very important.

GamesBeat: What do you think is most satisfying for your fans in a game like this?

Torvenius: “Adventure” is such a broad term. What does that include? Again, coming from the IP, what do you expect from an Indiana Jones game? Puzzles are a huge feature of this game. There’s not a lot of reference as far as what puzzles should look like on a triple-A scale. That’s something we had to figure out. How should we do it? How should it fit in the first-person view? Exploration, similarly there was not a lot of reference, but how do we want to do it? How does it work in the Indiana Jones universe? It’s about taking all these features and trying to put them together into this Machine Games style of adventure game.

Andersson: To me, if you have a hard time finding reference for the things you’re doing, that’s a positive. That’s a sign that you’re on a good path. If I can’t reference something I can pick from another game, that tells me we’re doing something fairly new, fairly unique. Of course you can combine that with other aspects that are out there. But when you find yourself in a position where it’s hard to find reference for what you want to do, to me that’s a sign we’re in an interesting place. Maybe we’re creating something that can be referenced by others later on.

GamesBeat: I’m always impressed by how much you seem to have learned about presenting other cultures, especially American culture.

Torvenius: We have a really good writing team. We do meticulous research into everything. This game takes place all over the globe, so–sure, the hero is American, and there’s an inherent conflict that results from him being an American all over the world, but the game takes place in all these diverse locations. The accuracy and attention to detail, trying to represent those places and cultures, that’s super important for us.

Andersson: It’s a weird mix. We’re trying to represent certain things, but we’re also trying to mimic something made in the 1930s. And we’re trying to do that in 2024, a modern take on it. It’s an interesting hybrid, trying to mesh all that together.

GamesBeat: The action in the Indiana Jones films, it has a lot of humor in it, but it’s also–it has a lot of cartoonish, exaggerated action. The boulder rolling down and chasing Indy, when it’s almost catching up to him, and then it’s further away.

Torvenius: It’s charming.

GamesBeat: I don’t know if that’s the kind of action you’re trying to capture in this game.

Torvenius: It’s the fantasy, right? The fantasy of this universe. Maybe there are more traps than there realistically should be. More big things that have somehow survived for a long time until you stumble upon them. That’s the larger-than-life fantasy. That matinee-style feeling, it’s something we want to carry across in all the game’s systems – the puzzles, the story, the hand-to-hand combat. It’s supposed to be fun, slightly humorous, but with an edge.

Andersson: We’ve been saying internally at times, “What would Indy do?” That maybe doesn’t mean specifically what Indy would actually do, but what would reflect the characteristics of the character? Sometimes, if we’re in conflict – Does this make sense? Is this realistic? – well, what would Indy do? That’s been part of our guiding principles in terms of trying to get closer to the core of the IP and the character. Making sure that we portray in a way that feels like Indiana Jones.

Torvenius: I mentioned attention to detail. I think that goes toward believability as well. This is a constantly ongoing challenge for the team. We have a level designer building a specific puzzle, and then art direction takes a look at it and says, “How does this work?” That matters. It needs to be believable to be immersive and fun.

GamesBeat: You have gamers who are used to more hardcore action. You have movie fans who aren’t, necessarily. You’re making these scenes where–for instance, when Indy shoots the guy with the big sword in the movie. That turns out to be a really funny scene. But games run into a problem like we saw in the Uncharted series, where Nathan Drake has this sense of humor while he goes off and kills hundreds of people, and gamers have come to expect that. I don’t know how you find a balance there.

Torvenius: That’s the tricky part. It’s important for us to give the player agency, to give them whatever tools–if there’s a gun on the table, we want the player to be able to pick it up and use it. At the same time, we don’t want it to be as effective as it might be in the real world. We want you to choose not to use it. Almost to our surprise, that fell into place quite a long time ago. You prefer to use your hands over a gun, just because of how the universe and the game systems fit together.

It’s actually very rare that we see players try to play the game that way. They prefer to use stealth, to use hand-to-hand combat to take people out. The consequences of using a gun are harsh. It’s an option that we want to give you, but we’ve managed to make the player want to role-play as Indy.

Andersson: You bring up an interesting point with the humorous aspect. That’s a big part of Indiana Jones, a big part of making sure the IP feels like what it is. We’ve constantly been trying to balance that on and off. Is this becoming too slapstick? Is this too much comedy? We obviously don’t want to do slapstick. Trying to find a balance between the action, the narrative, and the comedy, how all that fits into it.

Torvenius: That becomes easier and easier the further along we get into development and as the team starts to jell. We understand what this really is, what works and what doesn’t. We’re excited to get the game out to all the fans of the character, as well as the fans of Xbox and Machine Games. We’re super happy with where we are. We’re in a unique position with this game.

Andersson: Gamescom has been important for us, being able to show the game in a larger format with the theater. We want to show that this isn’t a shooter. It’s an adventure-first game. It has all these components. We want to make sure people understand that. 

Torvenius: The game is for a very broad audience. You don’t need to be a hardcore Indiana Jones fan to appreciate it. At the core of Indiana Jones is a very interesting universe with a lot of rich narrative. We’re extremely happy to be able to put all these different components together and create something we feel very proud of.

Disclosure: Devcom paid my way to Cologne, where I moderated two panels.