I wonder if the developers of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle — several years ago, when they were first outlining the game’s core pillars — felt like they knew what they were getting into when they decided to go the full-likeness route. That is, that the game’s protagonist wouldn’t just be “Indiana Jones,” but would look, sound, and move like Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, and specifically, the version of the character that fans knew and loved from the 1980s-era original trilogy. Y’know, Indy in his barrel-chested prime, not the senior citizen from the latter two films.
It’s a miracle that any game gets made, but it’s particularly miraculous that MachineGames pulled off this incredibly ambitious goal — and it all comes down to Troy Baker. The renowned voice actor has delivered indelible performances as Joel in The Last of Us, Sam Drake in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, and many other video game roles, but there are few characters more iconic and beloved in the popular imagination than Indiana Jones. Anything but a pitch-perfect recreation of Ford’s voice wasn’t going to cut it.
Courtesy of a new video published Friday by BAFTA, we have some insight from the developers at about how Baker managed this feat. He started the project with some method acting, in a sense: Baker showed up to the first table read — conducted virtually over Microsoft Teams because it was during the pandemic — with “Indiana Jones” as his screen name, and he also brought Indy’s fedora and bullwhip to the session, according to cinematic producer Mitra Ashkan Far.
She and voice-over designer Emily Hesler give a lot of credit to performance director Tom Keegan, whose resume includes multiple Wolfenstein and Star Wars games. Keegan “would do so well at getting people into character,” Hesler says. Around the 7:20 mark of the 27-minute video, Hesler plays some voice-over recordings of Baker grunting as Indy — just a second or two of him crying out as he takes a beating — and calls out the special sauce that makes his performance so remarkable, and so Ford-like.
“I think that’s so Indy right there,” says Hesler, laughing in amazement at the clip. “I don’t know, there’s so much personality in that, and so much more than him just getting kicked in the face.”
To Hesler, the timbre of Baker’s grunts tells you that Indy is frustrated to find himself in this situation, but simultaneously, the performance somehow convey a sense of strength and resolve — that Indy isn’t helpless, and in fact, that he knows he’s going to get back at the goon who’s laying into him.
“It has to have some, like, breathiness, I feel like,” Hesler continues. “Breathiness. I mean, there’s still tone there, but… oh, and something where he sounds kind of, like, annoyed at the same time, too. There’s got to be some sort of attitude or personality in it. And yeah, again, Troy pulls it off so well.”
Even after the dozens of hours I’ve spent playing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, I still marvel at Baker’s performance as Indy, for which he shared in the 2025 DICE Award for Outstanding Achievement in Character. The game is scheduled to debut on PlayStation 5 this spring.
