Harrison Ford may have retired his iconic whip and fedora on the big screen, but another actor is picking them up on the small screen.
As Bethesda unveils a first look at Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, its long-buzzed-about new video game, EW can exclusively confirm that Troy Baker is the one bringing the wise-cracking adventurer to life. The celebrated actor behind countless memorable gaming roles is perhaps most celebrated for originating the part of Joel in The Last of Us franchise.
“He really brings forward that charm and sense of humor in such a good way,” MachinesGames’ co-founder and lead game designer Jerk Gustafsson tells EW of Baker. “He’s also a very big Indiana Jones fan, which is super cool. So he’s also very invested in the game.”
Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images; Bethesda/MachineGames
Based on an idea from executive producer Todd Howard, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle takes place in the timeline of the Indy films, about one year after the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and before The Last Crusade. As such, the character’s animation maintains the likeness of Harrison Ford‘s performance. “He has separated from Marion,” Gustafsson explains. “We know that he is sort of lost again after that. He is adrift.”
Having fallen asleep at his desk at Marshall College, the noted archaeologist wakes in the night to the sound of a crash. He investigates to find a colossal man, named Locus (voiced by Candyman and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 star Tony Todd), stealing a seemingly insignificant artifact. With the mystery man and the relic now in the wind, Indy heads to the Vatican in search of answers, but discovers there’s a lot more to the story.
A trailer and accompanying presentation by the creatives that streamed on Thursday tease the significance of the Great Circle from the title. “Throughout history mankind has built sites of great spiritual significance,” Baker’s Indy says in the footage. “If you were to draw a line through these sites around the globe, you’d get a perfectly aligned circle.”
Later in the preview, he finds an unearthed message that reads, “Patron of the fallen angels, protector of the the circuli magni…the Great Circle.”
Like the rest of the Indy canon, The Great Circle will be a global adventure. Some of the confirmed locations include the Forgotten Temples of the Sukhothai, the pyramids of Egypt, and the snow-peaked Himalayas.
Bethesda/MachineGames
Bethesda/MachineGames
Marios Gavrilis, who voiced Bruce Wayne in the German cast recording of Gotham Knights, portrays the game’s main villain, Emmerich Voss, who has the same focus as Indy. “He is searching for those major mysteries and those things that are unknown to the rest of the world. That’s a big part of what’s driving him,” Gustafsson says. “So when it comes to that obsession, they are very much alike. I think that that’s the key element here that makes this a very, very interesting antagonist for Indiana Jones.”
The other key character is Gina Lombardi, voiced by Italian actress Alessandra Mastronardi, who appeared opposite Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal in the film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Gina is an investigative journalist who has a personal stake in this story. “I don’t know how deep I want to go into that at the moment,” Gustafsson teases. “I would say that she is also somewhat of a resistance journalist, and that has been an important part as well for shaping this character to make sure that Gina has her own goals.”
The Great Circle also features work from senior lighting artist Juli Haraldsdottir, audio director Pete Ward, senior narrative designer Ed Curtis-Sivess, senior animator Rebecca Elfström Hidén, and cinematics producer Mitra Ashkan Far.
Bethesda/MachineGames
While primarily set in the first-person viewpoint, the game often pulls back to a third-person perspective during cut scenes and environmental traversal to give fans those money shots of Indy with his whip and hat.
The entire project is a mix of story, puzzle-solving, open-world exploration and discovery, and stealth. Similar to how Ford’s Indy operates in the films, players can choose to get around targets by, say, sneaking up on an enemy and whacking them on the head with a shovel, eavesdropping on conversations, using your classic whip to climb around or distract assailants, or cutting straight to the chase and engaging in a brawl.
Ultimately, Gustafsson says he wants The Great Circle to feel like gamers are in the midst of a long-lost Indy film from the 1980s. Part of that comes from the cinematic approach to the game (stuntmen performed some of the action on set in motion-capture suits to make it look authentic), elements adapted from the films (like the classic Indy world map graphics), and new music composed by Gordy Haab in the style of John Williams‘ classic score.
Another piece of that was Baker himself. “He’s not only a very good actor, he also contributes quite a lot to actually make the game better,” Gustafsson explains. Baker flew out to MachineGames’ home base in Sweden early in the process to work out blocking for the motion-capture performance. “When we go through with those, there’s a lot of adjustments and changes, not only to the script itself, but also to how we set up the scenes, how we set up the cameras,” the game director continues. “Troy is much more a part of the development team than we usually see just because he’s in those blocking sessions.”
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