How does Harrison Ford's face look so real in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle? We asked the developers
These graphics will melt your face off.
If you’ve seen the trailers for the upcoming Indiana Jones game, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, you’ll know that Indy in the game looks uncannily similar to Harrison Ford from the films.
The game, which slots into the Indiana Jones timeline between 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark and 1989’s The Last Crusade, takes place from a first-person perspective, but you still see Indy’s face at various points in the game. It is, unmistakably, Harrison Ford’s face.
However, it has been confirmed that Ford did not provide the performance for Indy in the game, with voice duties being handled by The Last of Us star Troy Baker.
At a recent online preview event for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, I couldn’t help but ask the developers from MachineGames how they managed this digital sorcery.
My theory was that they had collaborated with the Disney-owned Lucasfilm movie studio, who must have had scans of Ford from the recent film.
In that movie, The Dial of Destiny, there was a memorable sequence featuring a digitally de-aged Harrison Ford.
So, at the event, I asked just that. Is there some sharing of resources here, with Lucasfilm allowing MachineGames to access their digital double of Ford from the recent feature film?
Axel Torvenius, creative director on The Great Circle, told me: "No, that's not what happened when we created our version.
"So, for the majority of the main cast, we've been having them scanned, basically. But we didn't have an opportunity to travel back in time and scan a young Harrison Ford.
"So what we've instead been doing is, through a lot of hard work and research, looking at a lot of the old material from the movies."
Torvenius explained that the developers "gained access to, like, turnaround photo sets that exist from the time, back in the '80s".
He stressed that it was "important to us to make sure that we portray and capture Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford, at that time, just after Raiders".
"So it's work that has been developed here at MachineGames."
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So, it wasn’t so much that Lucasfilm shared the de-aged Ford from the recent movie. It was more like Lucasfilm shared photo sets and other assets from the 1980s movies, allowing the team at MachineGames to create their own version of Ford using the assets from the right era.
Touching on the decision to set the game after Raiders, game director Jerk Gustafsson said: "Yeah, well, this is because a big part of the storyline is to continue the story arc from the Indiana Jones that everybody loved, from the Raiders of the Lost Ark. And we wanted to continue, basically."
He added: "We see the game as a direct sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark. So the Indiana Jones that we see in the game is the [same] Indiana Jones that everybody got to see in Raiders from the Lost Ark."
Well, it certainly looks like him! We’ll bring you more coverage on the game as its launch nears.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will launch on PC and Xbox Series X/S later in 2024.
You can order your copy from retailers like GAME, or simply wait for it to arrive day-one on Xbox Game Pass.
Read more about upcoming games:
- I played Star Wars Outlaws for four hours — here are 28 surprising things
- FC 25 new features: 25 major changes you need to know about
Check out more of our Gaming coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Authors
Rob Leane is the Gaming Editor at Radio Times, overseeing our coverage of the biggest games on PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, PC, mobile and VR. Rob works across our website, social media accounts and video channels, as well as producing our weekly gaming newsletter. He has previously worked at Den of Geek, Stealth Optional and Dennis Publishing.
