MachineGames explains how they de-aged Harrison Ford to become young Indiana Jones: “we couldn’t travel back in time”
We’ve seen a de-aged Harrison Ford before and quite recently for that matter as part of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. But, we’re soon set to see the actor looking younger than ever once again when Indiana Jones and the Great Circle debuts on PC and Xbox Series consoles.
If you’re wondering about how developer MachineGames approached the de-aging of Ford for the game, this was a question that was directly posed to the Swedish team during a recent Q&A session following a presentation of the title.
“No, that’s not what happened when we created our version,” said creative director Axel Torvenius. “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, but also what I just briefly mentioned, gain access to like turnaround photo sets that also exist from the time back in the 80s. Because important to us was to make sure that we portray and capture Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford at that time in just after Raiders [of the Lost Ark]. So, it’s work that has been developed here at MachineGames.”
This might lead you to wonder just how closely MachineGames, Disney, and Lucasfilm Games worked during the production of the title. Torvenius talked about this a little too, adding:
“I mean, we have continuous meetings with them on a regular basis throughout the entire production. We’ve been lucky and thankfully we’ve had access to Lucasfilm’s archive. We’ve been able to see extremely cool assets and photos and behind the scenes stuff from the original movies that ordinary humans not working on a game like this would be able to ever see. So, as fans of the franchise, that’s also very cool to see. And that’s been a great resource for us to be able to see more behind what’s shown on the cinema screen for these old classics. So yeah, it’s been a great resource.”
Don’t miss our preview of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.