I saw some well received fan attempt at an animated series treatment for Indy and it put everything so firmly into a kids entertainment space I had trouble buying it as the same franchise. Not to say Indy is for grown ups, but more that part of the appeal is the fact that it takes pulpy all-ages a venture tropes and infuses them with a touch of more complex humanity and βrealism,β and youβre just inevitably going to lose some of that when you stylize everything for animation
I think Fate of Atlantis gets away with feeling so much like a real Indy story in part because everything is so low res and tiny. Theres never a close up on a stylized face, the voice acting is scratchy and low res. My brain can take the presented outline of a story and its pacing and globe trotting map and postcard views, and imagine the Spielberg movie running on top of it. There arenβt a bunch of stylistic signifiers on top of it signaling to me βactually, this is something other than what your imagination is telling you it should be.β
Great Circle looks like it will have its own vibe - inevitable in a conversion to another medium and of course being first person - but itβs still trading in the language of live action cinema, even though itβs a 3D video game, which excites me for an Indy product.