Indiana Jones and The Great Circle's Melee Combat is…

In the life of Indiana Jones, fists are often preferred to guns. The veteran archaeologist has always relied less on guns than standard action heroes, preferring to punch, whip, or sneak his way out of trouble as often as possible. This preference is reflected in Indiana Jones and The Great Circle, MachineGames' first-person action-adventure game that attempts to faithfully recreate Indiana Jones and the world he lives in. The game's combat will lean toward melee, in line with its protagonist, so the system needs to be appropriately deep.

In an interview with The Best War Games, Indiana Jones and The Great Circle design director Jens Andersson opened up on some of the game's combat mechanics. He discussed how combat works and how it tries to play to Indy's strengths, as well as the variety on offer and the options the player will have when it comes to combat encounters.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Offers Plenty of Combat Options

First-person games have often struggled to craft deep, meaningful melee combat systems. The genre lends itself much easier to gunplay, with the likes of Halo and Call of Duty being two of the best examples of this. That being said, more recent games like Dead Island 2 have experimented with this by adding layers of complexity to the melee systems that were previously unseen in first-person games.

For Indiana Jones and The Great Circle, the goal was to make sure that gunplay never felt like a "first or even second option," which goes against the grain of any first-person game with guns. The first step in accomplishing this was to make melee combat feel more appealing. Enemies only draw guns when players do, save for a few escalation-type enemies, and going loud often turns against the player. As a result, Andersson explained that fists will very much be preferred to guns in Indiana Jones and The Great Circle:

"Indy never uses his gun as a first or even second option, and we wanted that to carry across to the player. He is a brawler, but not a trained one, so the melee combat in this game is therefore intentionally chaotic, where you need to pick up and use whatever is available around you."

Humor Also Has a Part to Play in The Great Circle's Combat

Of course, arguably, Indy is just as well-known for his quick wit and sharp humor as his adventurous side, and it was important for MachineGames to capture that side of his personality too. The humorous nature of the films extends past Indy himself, and Andersson explained that the team even wanted humor to play a part in combat at times, with the array of unusual weaponry on offer proof of that:

"We also wanted to have a sense of humor – it’s Indiana Jones after all! We’ve littered the game with fun and exotic items that you can use in combat or in stealth. While a shovel or hammer might be most effective, it’s hard to resist picking the banjo or even the flyswatter and trying it out on the nearby goon."

Indy's whip has a huge role to play in combat, too, allowing him to disarm or even stealthily take down enemies. Guns will be an option, but the player should prepare to experience much heavier resistance once they fire the first bullet, with enemies matching the player's actions. If the player uses guns, so too will the enemy. If MachineGames can nail melee combat, however, players should only need to use guns when there are no other viable options.

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