After making two outstanding Wolfenstein games, machinegames is pivoting away from a guns-first approach in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

Speaking to GamesRadar+ at Gamescom, Indiana Jones creative director Axel Torvenius explains the concept behind The Great Circle’s combat. “We want to make as much use of the whip as possible to traverse the environment, to scale walls, but also as a combat tool, being able to disarm people, or it’s a great way to initiate combat - to use the whip to pull them in, grab them before hand-to-hand combat fighting starts,” Torvenius says.

“Some of these things come naturally from what the project is - the revolver is also one of those things,” the creative director continues, adding, “But that’s where we start to apply design sensibilities - he is not this ‘gun first’ kind of person. What would you want to do as Indiana Jones? What is his personality? We want to make you feel like you are Indiana Jones. And that means feeling like guns shouldn’t be your first option. It should be the last option.”

So far, at least, the scant gameplay we’ve seen of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has the protagonist focused on either punching Nazis or using his trusty whip to cut them down to size. However, it’s worth pointing out we’ve seen incredibly little of The Great Circle’s actual gameplay to date, even though it’s due to launch in merely a few months from now on December 9.

Elsewhere, Indiana Jones was announced for a Spring 2025 release on PS5 earlier this week, and it caused quite a stir, as some perceived this as Xbox head Phil Spencer reneging on a previous comment surrounding the game. Upon further examination, though, it’s clear Spencer never said Indiana Jones wouldn’t come to the PS5 - just that it wouldn’t be one of the first four Xbox comes to hit PlayStation’s console.

You can read our complete Indiana Jones and the Great Circle preview for a deeper dive into the new game, as well as more comments from Torvenius.