‘Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’ Has a New Solution to a Fixed Video Game Trope

Fear not, dog lovers. While most games force you to fight canines, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle it will save you the tragedy of having to take down Spot with a hail of gunfire. Developer MachineGames has a clever feature that means you’ll never have to harm a dog in its next game with personality and character.

“Indiana Jones is a dog person,” creative director Jens Andersson said IGNexplaining MachineGames’ decision to do it Indiana Jones and the Great Circle pooch-friendly. The plot is based on the films the game is based on, where it is revealed that Indy went so far as to name himself after the family’s beloved dog. Because of that, it makes sense that you won’t be able to mow down the dogs in the game the way you normally do, among many others.

“Obviously this is a little bit different Wolfenstein also,” Andersson said, referring to a previous MachineGames title, “where the dog will explode.”

There is no explosion in the dogs The Great Circlehe will only drive them away. Like IGN he explains, if you point your gun at a dog and try to shoot it, you won’t actually shoot. Instead, the dog in question will take the threat to heart and smartly run away from you.

I’m a cat person myself, but I wish more games were taken The Great CircleHow to interact with puppies, or find another solution to send their digital dogs. Of course, there’s a double whammy in the idea that I’m more comfortable killing characters than canines, but clearing that is a chore for me and my doctor. Whether I’m upset about human suffering in video games or something else, it feels worse to see an animal – even one I know as a group of triangles on my TV screen – suffering.

I think it’s the yelps. The sound of a dog, or more often, a wolf, in pain in a video game makes me want to curl up and think about what I’ve done. One of my favorite games this year is Dragon Lesson 2but it has one big problem. There’s a lot of mystery surrounding it, and while credit goes to the game’s sound team for how realistic the noises they make are, it ranges from impressive to take offense when you attack and they start howling in pain. After a while, I quickly ran away whenever I could to avoid fighting wolves, even if it meant being covered by an ogre.

I’m not alone here either. Killing or threatening dogs in a play or any art form is a common trope seen as an emotional shortcut to remove strong emotions from the audience. It can work well if you want to find an easy target, but as usual it will repel people. The problem is so widespread that it’s even inspired a website called Does a Dog Die, a community-curated list that will tell you if a dog is sent to a beautiful northern farm in all kinds of movies, TV shows and movies. -TV and games, as well as sharing alerts for all kinds of other distractions. Other games, such as dog sledding Red Lighteven including options that keep dogs alive, to the relief of some of its players.

What does Indiana Jones and the Great Circle‘s approach to the problem is so good that it’s not an option for serious players – it’s a rare form of structure that makes sense in the game’s world. Making dogs turn tail and run when threatened doesn’t break anyone’s immersion the way undead canines can, and it helps keep the sound of the game from being overheard. pain is the cry of pain. Not every game can have a solution to a dog’s problem in a simple dream like The Great Circlebut to be honest, it’s not necessary. I’ll take any explanation you give me if it means you’ll never have to put another dog down in a video game again.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle launches on Xbox Series X/S and PC on December 9, and on PlayStation 5 in 2025.