Indiana Jones & the Great Circle Director on Its Hint System

Bethesda launched a brand-new trailer for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle a few days ago, showcasing some new in-game footage via Troy Baker's elaboration, who voiced over for Indy. There are first-person clips, making us see through Indy’s eyes and solve challenging puzzles, which is a key source of the fun in this adventure. 

Speaking of solving puzzles, Jens Andersson, creative director at the game’s developer MachineGames, shared with PC Gamer his insights on the design of the puzzles and how the team manage the balance between making the puzzles “challenging” enough while also not “blocking” players. He said: 

That gives us a proper anticipation of the difficulty of puzzles in the game. A fact not to be neglected is that players’ experiences in solving puzzles vary, their ways of thinking could be very different, and their patient levels could have gaps that are as huge as the Grand Canyon. Some tend to figure out all the issues and find solutions themselves, as this is where the sense of achievement or the real fun comes from for them. While some others, including me, prefer to proceed as smoothly as possible, seeking help whenever getting stuck, from all possible channels — tutorials, forums, discussions, etc. 

However, this is something MachineGames wants to avoid in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle as they consider it “immersion-breaking and bad.” As such, they developed an optional hint feature, which could be accessed via Indy's camera. 

What type of player are you? Do you prefer to look up tutorials for those challenging puzzles or enjoy the process of figuring them out? Let us know. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will be released on PC and Xbox Series X/S on December 9. The PlayStation 5 release will be live later, around the spring of 2025. You can already pre-order it now. 

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