Indiana Jones' rogue gallery is filled with interesting antagonists who often foil his passions, representing the worst in the world when it comes to intellectual and historical pursuits. ForIndiana Jones and The Great Circle, that foil is Sturmbannführer Emmerich Voss. He has been displayed rather prominently throughoutIndiana Jones and The Great Circle’s marketing, but his exact goals still elude players. Like Indy, he is pursuing the mystery of The Great Circle, but what he hopes to discover is power, not truth.
Emmerich Voss is played by actor Marios Gavrilis.
Emmerich Voss has been in charge of the Third Reich Special Antiquities Collection for three years bythe time ofIndiana Jones and The Great Circle, and this is not the first time he has encountered Indy. During a recent interview with Game Rant, lead narrative designer Tommy Tordsson Björk stated that Voss “is very familiar with Indy and his work, their paths having crossed many times before this.” This antagonistic relationship is perhaps best seen in theIndiana Jones and The Great Circletrailer where Voss captures Indy and buries him in the sands of Africa. Voss takes this chance to propagate his superiority, which Indy responds with a nice headbutt.
Emmerich Voss and The Great Circle
WhereIndy’s story withThe Great Circlebegins with a stolen artifact from Marshall College, Voss' began in North Africa. There, Voss discovers something related to a “deeper truth” around The Great Circle, with the Third Reich increasing his funding to perform digs all over the world. Somewhere along the way, Voss teams up with Wehrmacht Colonel Viktor Gantz as part of this pursuit. However, Gantz himself has a healthy dose of skepticism around all occult-like mysteries, but that doesn’t stop Voss from manipulating him.
Indeed, in his blackest heart of hearts, that is whoEmmerich Vossis: a manipulator. He has an obsession with psychoanalysis, which would have only surfaced some odd 40 years prior, and he uses the works of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung to develop these skills. The sad part is that he is quite good at analysis, both historical and social, but he puts these skills to use to take advantage of others, to poke at sensitive buttons. MachineGames, for example, previously said Voss was designed to get under the player’s skin.
I’m really curious what Sigmund Freud would say about Emmerich Voss' behaviors…
Because of his superiority complex, Voss refuses to see anyone as his equal. The hole in his complex is Indiana Jones, who he constantly wants to one-up. Part of this is no doubt because Emmerich Voss holds up a dark mirror to Indiana Jones. Indy’s moral compass cannot be compromised, but everything about Voss feels like a compromise. That’s what happens when someone treats anyone, including their greatest opponent, as inherently lesser. All Voss sees are opponents to be defeated, with Björk explaining,
“Because that is what other people are to Voss – opponents in some great game that he has to win. And Indy is his most formidable opponent so far. Winning the race to find the truth about the Great Circle before Indy does is his personal obsession, one that he will go to great lengths to achieve.”
Great Lengths for Great Circles
Voss would do anything to beat Indiana Jones and prove that he is, in fact, superior—even though he is objectively not. And, in fact, he has already gone to great lengths to do so. One of the reasons thatIndiana Jones teams up with journalist Gina Lombardiis because the latter believes Voss to have kidnapped her sister, who is an expert in dead languages. Perhaps the irony in this, from a psychoanalytical perspective, is lost on Voss. Indiana Jones and Gina are able to work together as equals, where he feels he must resort to extreme measures to compel a “lesser” to do what he, a “superior,” demands, but I digress.
Voss Might Be Going in Circles
Voss has executed digs all over the world looking for a proper power for the Third Reich, and that power is his draw to the Great Circle. Great Circles are a real thing; it is a navigational term used for plotting the short distances between two points on the globe. Themystery at the heart ofIndiana Jones and The Great Circleis why this specific Great Circle, made by drawing a line between the greatest wonders of the world, even exists. As Björk said, “The thing that tickles the imagination is that they all line up to at least within one tenth of one degree. And if you would cut the earth in two using the circle, you would get two perfect halves. This is the mystery of the Great Circle in our adventure – why do these sites align with each other, what deeper connections exist between them, and for what reason?”
As scientists, it stands to reason that both Voss and Jones can formulate some theory as they discover more and more about The Great Circle. However, their methods are as different as their moral compasses. Bjork explained,
“Voss seems to believe there is a great power to be found in this mystery, a power that can be used by the Reich in their claim for world domination. Indy is driven by his usual obsession with the past but, of course, also to stop the enemy from getting what they’re after.”
This is the greatest pursuit and contest of Voss' life, while it’s just another Tuesday for Indy. Voss' obsession with psychoanalysis seemingly makes him blind to its possible implications for himself, and it’ll be interesting to see how/if this impacts the story. For now, fans just have to wait.Indiana Jones and The Great Circleofficially releases on Xbox Game Pass, Steam, and Xbox Series X/S consoles on December 9, with 3 day early access available for some editions of the game. A PS5 version is coming in 2025.
