This article was originally published on June 27, 2025 - read the full issue

By Marie Dealessandri

The UK's main event for game professionals, Develop Brighton, is just around the corner. In between ice creams on the beach and a packed conference schedule, it'll feature keynotes from Remedy's Sam Lake, Code Coven CEO Tara Mustapha, and MachineGames talking about the making of Indiana Jones And The Great Circle.

It won't be MachineGames' first keynote on the topic, as the developer also headlined Nordic Game earlier this year. Indiana Jones And The Great Circle's success (the title released on PS5 a few weeks ago, selling even faster there than it did on Steam and Xbox), and how the Wolfenstein studio brought an ageing fan-favourite franchise back to the forefront, is a topic worth exploring indeed.

"A lot of us are fans of the IP," creative director Axel Torvenius says of MachineGames. "So the first [instinct] was, 'We're gonna squeeze in all of these cool Easter eggs and throwbacks'... Very quickly, though, of course you realise that you can't make a game just for people who know the IP."

Licensing IP for videogames has long been a golden goose for both licensors and licensees, from obvious triple-A properties such as Spider-Man to smaller indies securing access to global IP, including Hypergames and the Moomins, Bithell Games and its Tron series, and Dlala Studios working with Disney property in the form of Illusion Island.

So how do you approach working on a concept that isn't yours and is already revered by millions? MachineGames tells Knowledge about its approach for Indiana Jones, and bringing an iconic '80s IP to the 2020s.

Understanding the IP's essence to bridge the generation gap

Finding harmony between known and new takes is a tricky balancing act when working on an IP as storied as Indiana Jones.

"We very quickly realised that this is an adventure-first, action-heavy, narrative-driven game," Torvenius says, emphasising the need to understand the pillars of an IP.

MachineGames wanted to make sure that players would want to pick up the game regardless of their knowledge of Indiana Jones, all while giving the "ultimate Indiana Jones fix" to those who do, Torvenius smiles.

"But for us it was extremely important to make sure that, regardless of the type of cloth we're throwing onto the table, the fundament underneath is a really high-quality adventure game that anyone wants to pick up. That informed a lot of other decisions, from how we onboard players and what type of components we push, to design decisions, levelling up, platforming."

With Xbox Game Pass being Indiana Jones And The Great Circle's "primary launch platform" (as design director Jens Andersson puts it) back in December 2024, being accessible was a main concern.

"We wanted this game to be a lot of people's first introduction to first-person," he tells us, adding that MachineGames expected to attract a lot of young players. "[It's] easy to pick up, [and] more accessible than we've ever made a game at MachineGames. I had this hope that it makes you want to watch the movies, so it becomes an entry point to Indiana Jones for a newer generation. So there was this kind of secondary [objective] rather than creating this fan-service game. We needed to hit both."

Torvenius interjects: "We didn't want to have a response from the public where it's like, 'My dad and my grandpa like this guy – I'm not really interested'. Rather, it should be the other way around – a great game for filling a generation gap in a family, all sitting together."

Find the right references… or write your own

MachineGames' tagline during Indiana Jones And The Great Circle's development was for it to be a "global adventure". However, the studio found out pretty quickly that there aren't many recent adventure games that could be used for reference.

"It's arguable, right? What is or isn't an adventure game, and what does that mean?" Andersson asks. "We have the obvious comparisons but those weren't really good comparisons for us, even though they kind of borrowed a lot from Indiana Jones." (He doesn't elaborate, but we sense the ghost of Uncharted in the room.) "Games like Beyond Good & Evil and the old LucasArts point-and-click adventures – those are the ones that we pulled more from, and meshed with the MachineGames style."

But Torvenius points out that a lack of references is in fact a best-case scenario for a developer.

"That's a mark that you're on to something," he says. "It's this fog of war you need to enter with your lanterns and be like: 'Where are we going? Where's the path?' Good luck finding references, because you're in uncharted territory." He laughs, the pun presumably intended. "It's really good when you are in a position where you actually need to invent things."

Given its commercial and critical success, Indiana Jones And The Great Circle is now in a position where it's arguably become the reference other developers might be studying when making adventure games.

While Andersson says it's impossible to boil it down to a few core elements, he points to the parts he enjoyed most about working on the game: the integration of the story across the board and how everything feeds into the main narrative, with even side missions building upon the mythos of the main story and aiming to feel part of a bigger whole.

"The other part for me that really worked is the encouragement of exploration throughout these more open areas," he continues. "We've placed a lot of trust in the player. It's super scary as a developer, to create a lot of content that people might miss. But I think developers have gotten a little bit bolder in recent years, and we leaned into that."

Torvenius agrees, and adds that having components that are immersion-breaking can be damaging when trying to sell a coherent experience.

"The other one is identity, making sure that you always feel like you're in this world, and it has its own coherent identity throughout," he continues. "You shouldn't be pulled out of either immersion or identity. Obviously, you want to have the unexpected as well, but within the expected realm, dare to be bold with the design, basically. If, during production, you're thinking, 'This is not that fun, this is not that unique,' you're most likely right and your audience will feel exactly the same. But if you find the spark in the process…

"[I know] it's big words to say 'make new cool designs'. It's the toughest thing to do. But it's ever so important because we are in this sea of noise. There are so many good games out there – and a lot of other noise as well – so you really need to stand out, and the best thing you can do is at least make sure that the [game design] that you have is content that you believe in. Because then you will most likely deliver the best version of the product."

Communicate expectations early and trust the process

For MachineGames as a studio, going from fast-paced Nazi shooting with Wolfenstein to the slower-paced Indiana Jones (with a fair share of Nazi punching, still) was quite a leap of faith. You could arguably go through most of the game without shooting a single bullet. That required managing expectations on a few different levels – for both the studio's existing audience and with longtime Jones fans.

"We very much respect player agency," Tornevius says. "If you show the player that you respect their choices, you will gain a lot of investment because they will realise that there is this freedom and they can do things. You could run all guns blazing, it will just be very difficult. "

Andersson acknowledges that communicating The Great Circle's specifics as a slower-paced first-person adventure game was challenging.

"The pacing was one of the most uncomfortable things [to convey] from a marketing perspective because it's so hard to show, especially in this kind of trailer-format world that we live in," he says.

Torvenius adds: "And this ties back to what we talked about, which is so important for me: trust the process. We had the ambition to make this a fairly slower-paced game and, at the beginning, before everything was correctly implemented, it might have felt like a boring walking sim, but trust the process. When all of those puzzle pieces come together in production, you get the full experience of it.

"In the end, what's very interesting is that even though we allowed the game pace to slow down, it's never boring. There's still tension. It's nail-biting: I'm just walking down this weird corridor and hearing noises in the background, whatever it might be… It's high tension even though it's not high action.

"And I think finding those moments where we could push the experience, [where] you're really invested and feeling the exploration, solving things and using your brain, that was really nice to see. You don't need to have explosions and guns go off to have a rewarding experience in the game. There are plenty of other things you can do."

"Be aware of which toes you're stepping on"

Concluding our discussion, we ask Torvenius and Andersson for nuggets of wisdom they'd impart to smaller studios working on big, well-known IPs.

First, Torvenius points out that Indiana Jones And The Great Circle is the biggest production MachineGames has ever undertaken. While we can't get official confirmation, the studio is reported to employ in the region of 160 staff (as of 2024) – not a huge amount for a game of this scale.

"I wouldn't say that we were trying to bite off more than we could chew [but] we were biting off a pretty good chunk," Torvenius laughs. "We were really hungry, and now we are really full. But I think there was a lot of learning in terms of what it specifically means when you open up a section of a game to be very free roaming and open for exploration, how much content that actually requires to keep the player engaged and have player engagement throughout."

Going back to our question, he says the cornerstone of working with an existing IP is to be respectful and professional.

"Do your research and your homework," he says. "Understand the content that you are working with, analyse the IP, fully dissect it. Understand the audience, understand the background and how things came to be. And when you are laying out that map, then you can start to pick and choose what to ignore or what to strengthen and emphasise. But don't put yourself in a position where you don't know what you're talking about."

Once you're fully aware of what is or isn't important to an IP or a fanbase, then you can make an active decision to ignore or redesign. But don't discard ideas before you know the IP like the back of your hand.

"Do whatever you want, but be aware of the impact. Be aware of which toes you're stepping on, and how hard you're stepping on them."

Andersson notes the importance of making it your own as well, and for you to believe in it.

Torvenius concludes: "In this climate, with the way the business is swaying and moving, it's ever so important that people try to stay calm, focus on the things they love, focus on passion, identity, and the art of things. Try to stay true to these things, and make the world a better place."

This article was originally published on June 27, 2025 - read the full issue