[From the industry] Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Creative Director joins BAFTA for Game Republic New Horizons

This is a press release posted in addition to our usual editorial content.

MachineGames’ Axel Torvenius, Creative Director of the fantastic Indiana Jones and The Great Circle, will be interviewed by Luke Hebblethwaite, Head of Games at BAFTA, as one of the headline presentations at Riverside Stadium for Game Republic New Horizons on 16th October – a brand new flagship conference for the North of England.

Set between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark™ and Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade™, this new action-adventure game developed by MachineGames, and published by Bethesda Softworks in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games, travels through numerous places including Vatican City, Egypt, Thailand and China. The game released in 2024 on Windows and Xbox Series X/S and a PlayStation 5 version was released in April 2025. The game received rave reviews and multiple year-end nominations, including Game of the Year at the D.I.C.E. Awards – plus a DLC episode The Order of the Giants will be released on 4th September 2025, featuring new locations, puzzles and enemies.

MD of Game Republic, Jamie Sefton, said, “We are really excited to welcome Axel and MachineGames to New Horizons for this BAFTA session on Indiana Jones and The Great Circle – my favourite game of the last year! It’s not only a fantastic example of collaboration and the power of storytelling in games, but also complements the theme of Game Republic New Horizons – showing future opportunities like bringing together films and games, which we will be exploring more at the conference.”

Luke Hebblethwaite, Head of Games at BAFTA, said: “I’m delighted to have the opportunity to don my archaeologist’s fedora hat, explore the mysteries and uncover the treasures of the making of ‘Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’ with this brilliant keynote interview with MachineGames’ Creative Director Axel Torvenius. The North of England is home to a thriving, highly creative games industry, and BAFTA is proud to continue to show our support for the local sector at Game Republic’s inaugural New Horizons conference.”

Jamie adds, “This new flagship conference for The North is important, because it has been created by Game Republic, as a grassroots network born and built in the North. Whilst we always strive to bring great guests to our events, we knew that to make a new flagship conference for our incredible Northern games industry, we needed to bring even more exceptional speakers and special guests. We are very excited about announcing the BAFTA session with MachineGames today and we’ll have more exciting reveals over the next few weeks.”

Game Republic New Horizons will be taking place on 16th October at the Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough, and forms part of the GR 2025 events programme supported by Official Partners Xsolla, Barclays Games & Creative and Red Kite Games. The conference will include an expo, roundtables, bookable meetings and will be bringing guests from across the UK and overseas. Early bird rates are available until the end of July at £200 off. Alongside the day-long conference, there will be a VIP reception the night before the event and an after party giving attendees free, exclusive and unlimited access to Level X with two floors of arcades, go-karts, golf, bowling, karaoke and more. 

Dr Jackie Mulligan who is co-directing the Game Republic New Horizons conference explains “This event is a significant step for the Northern games industry – it will look at new opportunities, new markets and new investments, new tech, new games but will also celebrate the incredible work that is going on in the North, across all regions, the UK and overseas. This is very much a conference based on looking at what’s coming as well as celebrating what we have.”

News about the New Horizons conference has been well-received by the games industry in The North, and over 100 studio leaders have already registered to attend.