Indiana Jones game trailer gives a first look at new Bethesda project

Indy’s cracking the whip once more

Machine Games and Bethesda showed off the first Indiana Jones game trailer at the January 2024 Xbox Direct, and it turns out the rumors were right. The new Indiana Jones game is called Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and it’s planned for a late 2024 launch on Xbox Seriews X|S and PC.

The Great Circle is set between Raiders of the Lost Ark and Last Crusade, and it shows. The trailer looks like it came right out of a classic Indiana Jones movie, and the story unfolds like one as well. The game opens with Indiana working in his role as a professor, until one night, a mysterious man breaks in and steals a precious artifact. 

That act sends Indiana first to the Vatican for answers and then to Africa, where, as you can probably guess, he runs into a bunch of supernatural myths and some very nefarious people who are almost certainly Nazis.

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In true Indy fashion, Jones travels with a companion – Gina, an investigative journalist with a personal stake in the mystery Indiana is trying to solve. She’ll accompany you in combat and puzzles, though how much of an active role she plays is still up in the air.

The MachineGames team said one of their biggest goals was creating a game that makes you think in a way that’s as clever as Indiana Jones himself. Some puzzles let you blaze through with your revolver, but most encourage you to find creative solutions – using your whip, finding new routes through, and paying close attention to the environment around you.

“Adventure first” was the guiding principle behind every encounter and puzzle, so MachineGames said they worked hard to incorporate several systems and genre styles in The Great Circle, including stealth. 

And naturally, the whip plays a key role in everything from combat – Indy smacked someone in the groin during one segment, something the poor fella likely won’t recover from for a while – to solving puzzles and even creating distractions.