Indiana Jones almost had a GTA style wanted system because MachineGames feared players would just shoot every Nazi

Found this PC Gamer piece about Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and it's a fun little bit of GTA DNA showing up somewhere you wouldn't expect. Apparently MachineGames toyed with a wanted system straight out of the GTA playbook at some point in development.

The reason is what got me. Design director Jens Andersson said the studio was worried players would just mow down all the Nazis with guns and ignore everything else the game had to offer. Which, honestly, fair. Put a bunch of Nazis in front of a player and a loaded weapon and see what happens.

Their fix was to penalise shooting heavily rather than lean on a wanted system. Andersson's quote is basically that they made firing a gun feel costly, so you'd think twice before turning every encounter into a firefight.

why this is interesting for us

It's a reminder that GTA's wanted system is one of those designs everybody in the industry studies, even when they're building a first person adventure about punching fascists. The stars, the escalation, the way the game nudges you toward restraint without ever actually stopping you. It's a neat piece of design and it clearly gets borrowed.

Also kind of funny to imagine a version of that game where you blast one guard and suddenly the whole map is hunting you. Different vibe entirely.

I'm not saying GTA 6 needs to take notes from a Nazi-punching game, but the underlying question is the same one Rockstar deals with every time: how do you make chaos fun without making it the only thing players do? Andersson's answer was to make shooting hurt. Rockstar's answer has always been to make the chase the fun part.

Curious what people think the wanted system should look like this time around. Do you want it harsher than GTA 5, or are you fine with the current setup?

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Source: PC Gamer · Curated content.