Indiana Jones and the Great Circle™ Interview – Axel Torvenius, Creative Director

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle™ is out now on Nintendo Switch 2. We spoke to the game’s creative director, Axel Torvenius, about the experience of bringing Indiana Jones from the movie screen into a videogame, and the unique opportunities players can experience in the Nintendo Switch 2 release.

Thank you for joining us today! First off, could you introduce yourself to our audience?

Axel Torvenius:
Hello, I am Axel Torvenius. I am creative director here at MachineGames in Uppsala, Sweden.

To those unfamiliar with the game, what is Indiana Jones and the Great Circle all about?

Axel:
It’s a really exciting old-school, narrative-driven adventure, full of twists and turns. It starts off as one thing, and then quickly and drastically changes into something entirely unexpected – much like the Indiana Jones movies themselves.

Indiana Jones is an iconic character in the world of film, in no small part thanks to Harrison Ford’s performance. With Indy’s voice and performance capture being provided by Troy Baker, can you talk a little about the process of bringing this character to life for the game?

Axel:
I think one of the biggest challenges was obviously, how to do a high-quality representation of a fairly young Harrison Ford portraying Indiana Jones, right? We wanted to make sure we got the likeness, the voice, and everything else in terms of how he moves right. Finding the right talent for that was obviously a pretty long process.

When we saw the audition tapes with Troy, we kind of knew instantly this is our man to do the job. When I first heard the tapes, I was like, “Okay, cool, those are the reference lines for the actor, now let me hear Troy”. And the response was, “No, that was Troy”. And I was like, “You’re kidding me?”.

So, it was very spot on from the get-go. If we didn’t have Troy doing this great representation of Indiana Jones, it wouldn’t have been the high-quality likeness we wanted it to be. But the other part is the technical challenge.

We have the full motion capture with Troy, and then we have the in-game 3D model driven by Troy’s performance. Obviously, Troy doesn’t look like Indiana Jones, so having the model driven by these gestures without getting that ‘uncanny valley’ look was not an easy thing to do.

But there was a moment in production when we were like “yeah, now we see it”. Now we actually see Indiana Jones on the screen, driven by the performance of Troy. That was a big moment.

The game’s opening contains a faithful recreation of Indy’s first theatrical outing; Raiders of the Lost Ark™ as a playable section. What considerations did the team have in mind when translating this set piece into the opening gameplay segment?

Axel:
Yeah, in hindsight we’ve been talking about whether this was the best choice or if we were just mad! (laughs) But, it does actually do a lot of good things. First, it shows where we want to be in terms of the Indiana Jones timeline, and what sort of flavours and traits from that era of the character we wanted to have.

It also gives us an opportunity to introduce the tutorials and to teach the player how the world is and establish the pacing. We deliberately chose not to have this high-paced, action set piece in the beginning. Obviously, the boulder section is full of action and is very memorable, but before that it’s much slower and more deliberate. It sets up that you are starting an adventure, an exploration.

So, it was a good decision, but it’s also one of the most scrutinised sections in Indiana Jones history. The boulder scene even has a life outside of Indiana Jones – there are so many games and movies and whatnot that have referenced that, so everyone knows that scene. The pressure to get that right was pretty high.

Another iconic element in the game is, of course, Indiana Jones’ whip.

Axel:
It’s part of the core identity, right? There were two big things we were looking at with the whip: entry to combat and traversal.

So, when it comes to platforming and navigating environments that you need to puzzle your way through, the whip is the most important thing you have. The other thing is using the whip as an entry point into combat, either by closing the gap to an enemy or by disarming them. That gives you very interesting ways to enter combat scenarios.

When bringing the title over to Nintendo Switch 2, was there anything that surprised you and the dev team about the process?

Axel:
There are a couple of great positives about Nintendo Switch 2 that come to mind. The most obvious one is that you can enjoy the game wherever you are, right? If you’re at the airport, waiting for a bus, commuting on the train, or out in the garden hiding from your kids (laughs), you can still enjoy the game! I think that portable aspect is extremely strong, otherwise you’re tied to your sofa or your desk in your home office. So that is not a small thing.

Another thing is the gyro controls, and the support we have for that. Whether it’s when aiming, or just picking stuff up and looking around the world, and of course the mouse controller support. It all gives a new kind of flavour to experiencing the game that is unique to Nintendo Switch 2.

There are, of course, always challenges when taking something that was not originally built for this platform. But one thing we said very early on was to make sure that the experience on Nintendo Switch 2 should not differ at all from the experience on any other platform. That was important to us.

To achieve that, we had to cap the framerate to 30 fps, but the game is running smooth and solid at 30. It really holds up well in handheld mode, so we’re extremely happy with that. It’s a great opportunity to experience the game in a completely new way.

What was your first reaction when you saw the game running on Nintendo Switch 2 for the first time?

Axel:
It was amazing. You can always argue that a big screen is better, the bigger the better, and all these things, right? But all the cinematics, the game mechanics like solving puzzles, looking for icons in the world, all those things that you might imagine would get lost on a smaller screen, really don’t.

We didn’t need to do any reworks, like ripping out the entire game structure for solving puzzles or navigation. It just worked, and it was something we were really pleased to see. It also makes it a 1:1 experience with other platforms. It’s not a simplified version, it’s exactly the game we originally developed.

There's an intimacy in the game itself, because you as Indiana Jones get so up close and personal to things. When you punch a baddie in the face, you're up close and personal. You see the saliva and sweat. You're up close and personal, picking up notes or dusting off a screen or a temple wall looking for clues.

And when you have that in a handheld, it kind of pushes you very close to that intimate experience. I think it is very interesting how it can give the player quite a different experience in terms of enjoying the game.

I think that was one of the surprising things, just how well it plays on Nintendo Switch 2 and how good it feels – and to some extent how it’s a bit different, but in a positive way.

What does it mean to you to bring the world and character of Indiana Jones to the Nintendo Switch 2 audience?

Axel:
It means everything. We’ve spent so much time on what is a passion project for us. It becomes very personal. You invest so much time and so much energy, with so much support from our families and loved ones. It becomes something very intimate and very personal. So of course, you just want as many people out there as possible to be able to enjoy the game.

When we’re thinking about Indiana Jones specifically, it has always been something that bridges the generation gap for us. We see a lot of comments from the audience, where they can enjoy the game either with their parents who enjoyed the movies when they came out in the 80s, or with their kids.

We want new gamers that don’t know who Indiana Jones is to be able to discover Indiana Jones. And we want everyone who loves the characters and the franchise who maybe haven’t played many games, to think, “Oh, that’s a game I want to try out because it’s a part of my childhood”.

With the Nintendo Switch 2 release, hopefully we can widen that window and reach a new audience that haven’t yet played. That’s super exciting for us.

Finally, do you have a message to those long-term fans, and those experiencing an Indiana Jones adventure for the first time?

Axel:
For people that are fans of the franchise, this is by far the most complete Indiana Jones experience you’ll find in a videogame I would say. It’s a massive experience, and you’ll definitely get to feel like Indiana and explore the world of Indiana Jones deeper than ever before.

And for people that don’t know who Indiana Jones is, they are in for a great story with beautiful cinematics, interesting enemies, scary temples and hidden treasures.

Regardless of whether you know who Indiana Jones is or not, this is a really exciting adventure to embark upon.

Axel, thank you so much for your time and sharing your experiences with us.

Set off on a globe-trotting adventure and uncover one of history's greatest mysteries in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle™, out now on Nintendo Switch 2.