Indiana Jones video game coming from Bethesda and Lucasfilm Games

By Giovanni Colantonio Published January 12, 2021

Bethesda and Lucasfilm Games are teaming up to create an Indiana Jones video game. The original title is being produced by video game icon Todd Howard.

The new game is being developed by Swedish studio MachineGames, best known for its work on the Wolfenstein series, including recent hits like Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.

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Bethesda is producing the game, with Howard serving in an executive producer role. Howard is an industry legend known for directing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and executive producing Bethesda games like Fallout 76.

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— Bethesda (@bethesda) January 12, 2021

Bethesda revealed the news via a teaser trailer on Twitter. The 33-second video just shows a panning shot of a desk that eventually lands on Indiana Jones’ signature hat and whip. Bethesda, Lucasfilm Games, and MachineGames’ logos can all be seen in the trailer.

Lucasfilm followed up on the teaser with a blog post confirming the collaboration between the studios. The blog notes that “the game will tell a wholly original, stand-alone tale set at the height of the career of the famed adventurer.” The post notes that the teaser includes a few cryptic clues about the game.

The collaboration comes at a major moment for both studios. Just yesterday, Disney announced that it was bringing back the Lucasfilm Games brand, though it doesn’t seem that the studio will actually develop games itself. Meanwhile, Microsoft is still in the process of acquiring Bethesda and its parent company ZeniMax Media. MachineGames is also part of that acquisition. That raises some questions about whether or not the new title will be an Xbox exclusive.

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Giovanni Colantonio

Senior Gaming Editor

As Digital Trends' Senior Gaming Editor, Giovanni Colantonio oversees all things video games at Digital Trends. As a veteran…

Gaming

All Adventure Books in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

An adventure book in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

Professor Jones in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a scholar more than an action hero. Sure, he will pull off plenty of death-defying stunts while solving puzzles, hunting down collectibles, and fighting Nazis across his globe-trotting adventures, but combat will never do a thing to add to or improve your abilities. Instead, Adventure Books are the keys to unlocking new and better skills. Sadly, Indy never makes a pitstop to a library on his quest, so we have to find these valuable tomes ourselves. Let's study up on all the Adventure Books in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and how they work.
How Adventure Books work
Indiana is smart, but apparently not so smart that just finding an Adventure Book is enough to learn all its secrets. Collecting the book is just the first step, but unlocking its ability requires you to go into the Books tab of the menu, highlight it, and spend your Adventure Points to unlock whatever skill it can grant you. Once you have unlocked it, that skill will be permanently active from that point forward.
All Adventure Books and what they do
There are dozens of Adventure Books in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, but many of them are upgraded versions of the same one that simply boost their power. Here is a full list of all the Adventure Books, what skill the provide, how many Adventure Points (AP) it costs to unlock, and what level you can find them in.
Castel Sant'Angelo

Punch Out 1
Restores stamina when you knock out an enemy - Costs 25 AP
Lucky Hat 1
When knocked out, gives you a chance to pick up your hat and get back up - Costs 125 AP
Brawler 1
Increases unarmed damage in hand-to-hand combat - Costs 200 AP
Vatican City

Gaming

How long is Indiana Jones and the Great Circle?

Indiana drawing a circle in red.

We've had plenty of Indiana Jones games in the past, but none in any modern generation until now. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is the last great Xbox Series X game of 2024 and promises an adventure on par with the films we fell in love with. Adventure games such as this don't tend to be particularly long, though, leading some to wonder whether this game will be much longer than the films. Thankfully, that isn't the case, but you should still know what you're getting into before picking the game up or subscribing to Game Pass to check it out. Let's solve the riddle of how long it takes to beat Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
How long is Indiana Jones and the Great Circle?

Pinning down how long this adventure will take you is a bit of a puzzle. While Indiana Jones and the Great Circle isn't an open-world game, it is by no means linear and there are tons of collectibles, side uests, and optional mysteries to solve. Depending on how thorough you want to be, that can double your playtime, or possibly triple it.

Gaming

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: all Vatican Medicine Bottle locations

Indiana Jones standing in the jungle.

There are dozens of notes, items, weapons, and artifacts to pick up while touring the world in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Most of these collectibles are good for earning Adventure Points or solving some puzzles, but there's only one that you can trade for a permanent boost to Indy's stats. Specifically, the Medicine Bottles hidden in Vatican City can be traded in for Adventure Books that either raise your HP or stamina bar permanently. That makes these little hard-to-find vials even more valuable than the ancient treasures you will find. If you want to get as much HP or stamina as possible, then you will need to find every last one. Here's the location of all the Medicine Bottles.
All Medicine Bottle locations
There are 15 Medicine Bottles in Vatican City in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. They will only pop up once you begin the A Remedy for All side quest, but you will also need to do the A Nun in Trouble and The Mad Priest quests to access some of them. We have marked all the bottle locations on the map below, as well as more detailed instructions below if you are having trouble reaching any of them.

1.
Once you finish the A Nun in Trouble mystery you will get Guiliana's Key. Take it down the Borgia tower and find the gap you can swing over with your whip and unlock the door with your new key. The bottle is just ahead on a box in the corner.
2.
While you're doing The Mad Priest side quest you will be given the Sewer Key and sent down below the city through the Tower of Nicholas V. Once through the locked gate, climb up and swing across the upper area onto a ledge leading to stairs going up into the palace. The bottle is at the base of these stairs.
3.
Go behind the Post Office building and look for the bottle resting on a wooden bench.
4.
Starting from the Belvedere Courtyard, head down the street toward the Post Office, and take a right into the short alleyway. The bottle is on the table next to a set of closed doors at the end.
5.
At the entrance to Via Di Belvedere, go into the Blackshirt's tent. There is a Medicine Bottle among the belongings on the long table.
6.
Climb up the scaffolding of the church being constructed near the Borgia Courtyard. Use the chandelier to swing to a window and onto a balcony, then platform to the left onto a rooftop where a single guard is posted near the bottle.
7.
From the Borgia Courtyard, go east from the entrance toward the Apostolical Palace. Find the area where the construction workers are stationed and locate the bottle on one of the barrels on the ground floor.
8.
Sneak or wear a disguise to enter the Blackshirt Barracks. Once inside the upper floor, the bottle is in a room just next to the staircase leading from the first floor.
9.
Head to the southern side of the Tower of Nicholas V and find a staircase up to the Passetto di Borgo. Take it all the way to the Castel Sant'Angelo and up another set of stairs to a dead end with this Medicine Bottle.
10.
Go through the main doors of the Apostolic Palace via the Borgia Courtyard and sneak or fight the many guards inside to get to the center of the room below the staircase. The bottle is on the little working area set up here.
11.
While you're in the Apostolic Palace, make your way all the way up to the top floor into the bright green room. Guards will be outside so you can either fight past them or sneak in through an adjacent room and across the balcony. Either way, the medicine bottle is on one of the desks against the wall.
12.
Back outside in the construction site outside the palace, go into the wooden storage shed and grab the bottle on the bench below the bulletin board.
13.
This bottle can't be obtained until you go through the main story far enough to meet Gina. Once you have and got out of the Underworld, use a zipline on the balcony to get over to a nearby rooftop. From here, find the hole in the fence to slip through into a tent where a group of guards are undressed to wash themselves. The bottle is on a bench next to a disguise you can snag if you haven't already.
14.
Putting that disguise to good use, infiltrate the restricted area to the north of Belvedere Courtyard and hug the south fence until you find a hole you can sneak through to get into a tent. The bottle is on the table in the middle of the room.
15.
For our final bottle, you must have the Blackshirt Uniform, so take a second to change. Now that you look the part, head to the Blackshirt Barracks and find the tent that needs the Blackshirt Key to open. Open it up and snap up the final bottle.
How to use Medicine Bottles to upgrade HP

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