Indiana Jones and the Great Circle doesn’t “encourage gunplay,” and it’s right not to

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is on the way, and with it set to release in only a few months, we’ve learned quite a bit about the Bethesda Softworks title. Now, we’re finding out why Indy won’t be so focused on guns.

The Great Circle’s place in the overall Indiana Jones franchise timeline, which legacy characters from the films will appear, and details about the story have all come to light. Developer MachineGames has also been revealed how the game will approach gunplay, with The Great Circle apparently leaning away from guns for the most part, forcing players to progress by other means.

Speaking with Edge magazine (via GamesRadar), The Great Circle creative director Axel Torvenius explained: “We do not encourage gunplay. It’s not being pushed as the primary way forward. The primary way forward is always trying to use your wits and your whip.”

Torvenius went on to assert that this approach was taken to remain true to the Indiana Jones character fans have known for decades. Since Torvenius made these remarks, some Indy fans online have questioned the validity of the claim, arguing that The Great Circle team made the wrong call with the game’s relationship with firearms.

In reality, I think Torvenius is right. Extensive gunplay has no place in an Indiana Jones video game.

Indiana Jones is a professor, not a gunslinger

An element of Torvenius’ chat with Edge that seems to be overlooked in the gunplay debate is his succinct explanation of who Indiana Jones is.

“At the end of the day, he’s a teacher and a somewhat clumsy archeologist,” Torvenius said. “He just happens to have this passion that puts him in these weird situations constantly with enemies and traps.” Through that brief summary of Dr. Jones, it’s understood entirely why trying to turn The Great Circle into just another first-person shooter title would be the absolute wrong move.

There’s no denying that there is a certain level of violence to Indiana Jones’ adventures. Enemies and allies alike are constantly being thrown into harm’s way as Jones seeks out the world’s most powerful and mysterious artifacts, hoping to keep them out of the clutches of evil. More often than not, his fists, whip, and cunning are enough to keep him and his friends alive. Whittling the tools at players’ disposal down to these bare essentials minimized sounds like it should make for a more authentic Indy portrayal and a more engaging game.

Even the movies minimize gunplay

At the same time, there is a case to be made for Indiana Jones’ gun use. After all, when push comes to shove, he’s never afraid to pick up a firearm to get out of a bind. Who could forget the iconic Raiders of the Lost Ark confrontation with the Cairo Swordsman, who tries to pull Indy into a fight with his flashy sword skills only to be shot in the blink of an eye? There’s also the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade rescue of Dr. Henry Jones Sr., where his son mows down a group of enemy soldiers with a machine gun to aid in their escape. Thus, it’s evident that to some extent guns are tied closely to Indy.

However, the key thing to understand is that in the aforementioned examples, and pretty much any other one could pull from the Indiana Jones movies, guns are only used briefly. After he shoots the Swordsman, he holsters his pistol, and once the enemy soldiers are laying dead on the ground, he tosses the machine gun aside. Taking conflict to such an extreme isn’t Indy’s goal, but he’s willing to do it under specific circumstances, particularly in life or death scenarios. Maintaining that mentality in The Great Circle is the right way to go if Torvenius and the other minds behind it want to emulate Indy’s movie characterization.

Clearly, the folks at MachineGames have done their homework on Indiana Jones and his unorthodox conflict resolution skills to prepare for The Great Circle. Time will tell how their efforts pan out when the game launches on December 9 for Windows, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S.