Indiana Jones and the Great Circle interview: dev on origins, first-person perspective, Switch 2, and more

The next big Nintendo Switch 2 port is about to arrive with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. With the release fast approaching, we caught up with creative director Axel Torvenius at MachineGames to talk about the game in a bit more depth.

The Nintendo Switch 2 version, as you would expect, was a big talking point with our conversation covering tech specs and fitting the game onto a cartridge. We also spoke about how the game originally came about and the decision to go with a first-person perspective. 

For many years, MachineGames was mostly known for its work on the Wolfenstein series. Looking back on the project’s origins, what made the studio interested in taking on the challenge of creating an Indiana Jones title?

We at MachineGames were extremely thrilled to be offered the opportunity to work on such a beloved franchise and character as Indiana Jones. It is due to our long-term friend Todd Howard, who had this really interesting original idea for an Indiana Jones game which he pitched to Lucasfilm Games, with MachineGames in mind as a suitable studio to develop this pitch. Lucasfilm Games was equally excited with the idea, so it is thanks to Todd that we landed the project.

We were extremely thrilled and excited to be offered the opportunity to work on such a well-known and beloved franchise. It’s safe to say that basically everyone at MachineGames is an Indiana Jones fan, so there were screams of joy and excitement in the corridors of the studio here in Uppsala when we got the news.

Something that was initially a bit controversial was the decision to have the game stick with a mostly first-person perspective. Did the team ever consider offering a third-person option at any point, whether it was during development or even after launch with an update?

Very early on we set our eyes on being first-person only.

One reason for this being that we wanted to put the player into the shoes of Indiana Jones to try to immerse them as much as we possibly could in the sensation of viewing the world through Indiana Jones’ eyes, literally. The only exception we have in the gameplay segment is when we push the player into traversals, we cut out to third person. So even sometimes in the minute-to-minute gameplay, the player will be for a short period in third-person camera perspective, but that’s only through the traversal and platforming segments.

We also have been developing first person games for quite some time. So, there are a lot of strengths within the studio in terms of how to handle level design and combat systems and to build a good story through our FPS lens.

The other aspect was, of course, that throughout the game, we have quite a large variety of high fidelity cut scenes being played out, all in third-person. So, we still get to see Indiana Jones’ face a lot, and we still get to give the player the sensation of being in both first person and third person, even though the majority of the gameplay is first person.

How did the decision to cast Troy Baker as Indy come about?

We had a pretty big list of potential talents to take on the role as Indiana Jones, but nothing really felt right until we heard Troy’s audition.

The first time I heard his audition, I actually thought it was the reference lines of the real young Harrison Ford from Indiana Jones. And then it turned out to be Troy Baker doing a really great representation of the character. So after we saw and heard that audition, the choice was easy. Troy Baker was our Indiana Jones.

The Nintendo Switch 2 version is coming up very soon and fans are excited about the release. Do you remember what the starting point for the port was? How did this version of the game come to be?

As soon as we were aware of the opportunity to bring the game to Switch 2, we were extremely happy. At MachineGames, we always want as many players as possible to get their hands on our games. So when the opportunity arose, though it was later in production, we immediately started the work on making sure that the full experience of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle would be available on Switch 2 as well.

Can you confirm the frame rate and resolution specs for the Nintendo Switch 2 port? Also, is DLSS being used in any way?

The game runs at a locked 30 FPS throughout, and at 1080p in docked mode and 720p when in handheld mode.

We use a dynamic native resolution in the game. A lot of the time the game runs at full resolution, without the need for DLSS. When we need to drop resolution to maintain frame rate, we use DLSS to upscale the game to 1080p in docked mode and 720p in handheld.

What sort of technical work / sacrifices were made to get the game running on Nintendo Switch 2?

We are extremely happy that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on Switch 2 is equal to other consoles.

There is one single instance that we needed to reduce the numbers of free roaming NPCs slightly, but that’s in one location only. The only other adaptation we made to the Switch 2 platform was to make sure that we locked it at 30 frames per second. The reason for this was to ensure that the player will have a strong, high-quality experience on the Switch 2 version that equals other consoles.

As a studio largely involved with PlayStation and Xbox consoles, how do you feel about Nintendo Switch 2 from a hardware perspective and how it holds up to other systems?

At MachineGames, we always try to ensure our games and products are available to as many players as possible, and each platform has its own unique features. The fact that you can play Indiana Jones and the Great Circle when you’re out on your own adventure on the train, the bus, or just have it in your backpack to enjoy whenever, is at least one of the big features of Nintendo Switch 2 that excites me.

The other things that are interesting with the Switch 2 is of course the gyro motion controls for movement, and the full compatibility with the Joy-Con 2 mouse controller functionality. Those are exclusive to the Switch 2, so we’re happy to have these interesting mechanics to work with in the Switch 2 release.

We were a bit surprised to hear that the game will ship on a full physical Nintendo Switch 2 cartridge as this is a pretty beefy download on other platforms. How did the team manage to cut down the file size so that it would fit on the cart?

With a lot of hard work from our mastermind engineers! It was not a small task to get all of that high quality data down to a cartridge. One of the ways we were able to achieve this was by locking the game at 30 FPS to keep a smooth gameplay experience throughout. Overall, it was no small task for our internal engineering team, but we are extremely happy with the final results.

Since you’ve built your own solid Indiana Jones world, do you feel like there’s more that the team could do with it, possibly in the form of a sequel?

At MachineGames, we have completely loved being in the world of Indiana Jones and exploring this franchise. Right now, we’re only focused on making sure that the Switch 2 release goes smoothly, and we are super excited to see the game in the hands of a lot of new players in the near future.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is hitting Nintendo Switch 2 on May 12, 2026. You can see how this version of the game is shaping up here.