Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Some heroes are timeless, even if they’re from a particular era of time itself. One such hero who will never die and remain a figure of legend in entertainment is Indiana Jones. First brought to us by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg in 1981 as the protagonist in Raiders of the Lost Ark. A remarkable throwback to the adventure films of the Silver Age of cinema, but more modernised to include campy gore, witty one-liners, and occult horror. It landed so well that not even a “bad” sequel could dethrone it, but then we got The Last Crusade, and the holy trilogy was complete … and that’s all the films we got… nothing more … and we got a few games out of Indiana too, but surprisingly it’s been 15 years since the last one.

Finally, Bethesda, Todd Howard, and the dudes behind the rebirth of Wolfenstein, Machine Games, have brought us a true next-adventure experience unlike any other.


What is Indiana Jones and The Great Circle?


As mentioned it’s been a long time since we had a proper Indiana Jones game, there have been a few, he’s skipped the last two console generations and we had two awful films instead. Now is the time for corrections and Machine Games and Todd Howard, with the help of Lucas Arts Games and the two creators themselves, has brought us Indiana Jones's biggest gaming adventure, and to me, one of his greatest overall.

Set after the events of the first film, Indiana Jones is living a somewhat comfortable existence as a professor at Marshall College, teaching history, and drinking with his oldest Friend Marcus, until one faithful break in. During a stormy night, a giant of a man, played by the late, great Tony Todd, breaks into the college to steal an artefact and knocks Indiana Jones unconscious. What occurs next is a globetrotting adventure, that unravels a greater mystery known as The Great Circle.

What starts as a curious case of a stolen mummified cat, turns into a stopping a sinister plot orchestrated by occultist Nazis to find a source of immense, destructive power. It’s a classic Indiana Jones romp that features Nazis, exotic locations, tomb exploration, and that amazing punch sound effect we all love!

And Machine Games has done it all, as an “Immersive sim-lite”, hired gaming’s smoothest voice actor Troy Baker to do a very decent Indiana impersonation, and most importantly, crafted and executed a fantastic story worthy of the film series. In the three films …there was no 4 or 5.


That belongs in a museum!


Fans and those who’ve watched previous Indiana Jones films will be able to connect the dots to grasp the plot very easily. It’ treads familiar ground, as Indiana Jones is called once again to adventure to retrieve his stolen cat mummy. Why was it stolen? Where has it gone? He’s going to find out. He could leave well enough alone, but Indiana Jones has a keen sense of when something larger and more fowl is afoot.

Taking him from his home at the college to Vatican City, Egypt, and Thailand to unravel the greater mystery at hand, involving a superpower the Nazis want to get their hands on. One of these beautiful locations containing its vast and enthralling history would have been enough as a setting for the game, we get three and all of them provide such amazing set dressing, and fascinating exploration with cool history. It’s truly fantastic we get a massive globetrotting adventure across multiple countries, which feels epic and warranted, more than what the films could ever bring us.

What the good Indiana Jones films and the okay sequel Temple of Doom give us are great characters, compelling settings, and mysteries that feature cosmic elements, gore, and usually Nazis. The Great Circle treads familiar ground and while it might be a little too familiar to have Nazis yet again as the bad guys there are some neat twists here that add depth and gravitas to this story.

Firstly, this is set just before World War 2, and we see the inner workings and preparations for what is about to come. It is quite poignant by the end of the game where we’re taken and knowing what is coming, that it does hit hard, more than any of the films. The other reason why this story works with all its familiar threats is the stellar character writing. Machine Games know weirdly and brilliantly to humanise villains, particularly Nazis to make them more understandable, interesting, and even more despicable. And the leading bad guy here is utterly brilliant, and his bitter arguments with a reluctant and snarky Nazi lieutenant are some of the weirdest, campiest and most brilliant savages between two grown men I’ve ever seen.

Not only that, the writing for Indiana and the Good Guys is also utterly great, with point-perfect writing (and acting) being given to Indiana Jones himself. Everything Troy says, I believe Harrison Ford would say as the adventure, but also the perfect details added in the performance, from the little nods, the cheeky smiles, and the reaction to snakes is so on point. One of my favourite moments is when Indiana Jones is disguised as a Priest and is pulled into a confession by a fascist Black Shirt guard. What occurs is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in gaming for a long time, and there are multiple moments where the writing and Troy Baker bring back an iconic character in his prime. As Harrison Ford is 80 now, we can’t expect him to be Indiana Jones again, but what we have here is pure magic, simply one of the best things in gaming for a long time.  

And while the story beats of “Nazis looking for the source of power” is a little done and dusted, the globetrotting adventure across some magnificent locations, the brilliant character writing and performances, and the gripping moments in Shanghai during the 3rd act left me breathless. It’s classic “tomb raiding”, “Uncharted” fun that is all about adventure, discovery and thematically the battle between good, evil, and history. It’s just a compelling, strongly written story, full of characters you’ll love to watch until the end and all the fascinating history that would leave you in disbelief.


An Immersive Indiana Jones experience


Now I had wondered what Machine Games were planning, and I was in the mindset that this would easily be a sort of Wolfenstein clone, throwing together some Uncharted-style action and fun. But what we get is vastly more interesting, to say the least.

The first couple of hours are indeed a leaner, more linear adventure experience, focusing on stealth and light deduction. There’s even a recreation of the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark, which is stunning and fun, but not the best part by far. So you would be forgiven for thinking that what we’re getting is a linear adventure romp. Then when reaching Vatican City, you get a disguise, a mission objective, and a small open world to figure out. What comes next until the end, is a series of mini-open worlds where you can do as you please, complete tasks how you see fit, and explore to your heart's content. It’s essentially an immersive sim-lite, where you have a goal to complete and items to find, but you can handle them as you please. Be it with stealth, cunning, or good old fisticuffs.

It's an incredibly humble formula where Indiana will have to use the resources around him at hand, his trusty whip and his senses to get the job done. No fancy gadgets, no massive guns to mow down legions of Nazis with (although you can pick up guns and shoot lots of Nazis), and no hand-holding guidance systems that tell you everything, everywhere and where everyone is. It’s you, your whip and your smarts. This approach is so refreshing, engaging, and utterly charming that it makes me miss immersive sims even more than ever.

What I loved most was how open the game was to dealing with problems, with certain routes being quite clear as day, only for you to discover another on the way out of an area. But the amount of tools you can use as improv weapons or for distraction is staggering, and the reaction/cause and effect of your actions is usually a form of beautiful chaos that will thrill you throughout the 20-hour or so campaign. It’s a weird combination of laidback, to utterly enthralling with the brilliant blend of stealth, action, immersive-sim improv and lateral deduction. It truly feels like the closest experience to the films themselves.

Stealth is key here, which is decent and requires more of your sensors than the game giving you a massive heads-up display on enemy alertness. It is quite basic in many regards, but you can do everything from throwing items, moving bodies, stealth takedowns, and wearing disguises. It’s more than most modern games and their stealth systems, and other elements including the whip which allows you to reach high places, and the reaction gameplay when things go wrong that you can fight or flee.

The enemy AI is sometimes a little naff on easier modes, to be honest, a little too forgiving for the most part. But they do react nicely to things that are out of place, including bodies, noise and other small things. But they don’t seem to care about other things such as doors opening by themselves. It is serviceable at best and better than previous Machine Game titles where enemies would ignore bodies right in front of them. But there were still some major moments which left me thinking these guys were utterly stupid. Then there's the friendly AI which even just following you can do the most dumbfound manoeuvres possible, like walking out in the open given enemies. Thankfully this doesn't trigger an alert, but it's also not good for the immersion side of thing. There were easier ways to handle this, like having them wait back while you do your thing, as in most stealth sections, they provide nothing to gameplay.

The action side of things is tight and punchy, and also again highly reactionary to the gameplay, as you can only carry one firearm, and you can’t carry spare ammo. It fits into the rush, sprint, and think-fight notion, again highly reactionary gameplay. Where you’ll pick up a gun, fire every shot you have, and then pick up a hammer to throw at a nazi for good measure. But later in the game, the action does ramp up considerably, as set pieces and action events occur on a massive scale. An aeroplane chase in Shanghai is a major highlight. The gunplay is tight and fun, but the punch, punchy, whip stuff is the standout here.

Like the films, Indiana can do a fair bit of damage with his fists, and you’ll end up in a fair few fights, to be honest. Indiana can do all the moves, with fights usually resulting in back-to-back blows, and that punchy sound effect we all love, and using the whip for a cheeky upper-hand moment which isn’t cheating. It feels very arcadic, like something from the early 2000s era of gaming, such as The Chronicles of Riddick. Funny enough, some of the guys at Machine Games were at Starbreeze studios, developers of Escape from Butcher Bay, with the lead director Jerk Gustafsson, being director of The Great Circle.

So much of the DNA of the Riddick games and even the Darkness lies here in The Great Circle, particularly the fighting, which is harsh, quite lateral at times, but allows you to fight dirty, or use your revolver to shoot a Nazi or two to even the odds. The core gameplay elements work well, and while nothing revolutionary, they do coexist in a beautiful manner, which many games trying all manner of tricks and gameplay types fail to do so well.


I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go


What is the star of the show, apart from Troy Baker’s excellent impression of Harrison Ford, is the open world, and immersive-sim lite elements, which see you explore, gain that sense of meaningful discovery, and reward your curiosity. I found myself simply walking around in disguise, taking pictures of cats and doggos, finding option tombs and solving problems in the world around me. It feels highly organic, and brightly alive with the sense that the world around you is living and breathing. Finding random books which grant you new skills, or weird ancient artefacts that look like willies (sorry, that’s my perverted mind at play here), or stumbling upon long lost tombs that hold a powerful melee weapon you can then use to beat Nazis to death with.

The variety of tombs, puzzles and little discoveries are quite immense, but you will see the odd one or two which a little lacklustre, or too easy overall. I get it, but there are more of them which require a fair amount of lateral thinking than those which don’t. And above all, they do range better than the old block puzzles in the old, old Tomb Raider games. Which I adore. And a lot of side quests feel organic and nicely placed within the world. Although a couple of them left me scratching my head, like finding a key for a locked house and all the clues pointing to a nearby dig site. However, the key was located in a bird's nest on top of the same house ... like how was I meant to figure that out? This is pure Moon Logic and it's horrible when this happens, but thankfully it happens twice from my playthrough.

There is a good deal to find here, and it just feels much more substantial and meaningful than your typical Ubisoft slop, especially since everything looks, and sounds stunning. Plus, this game pushes 60 FPS, even on the Xbox Series S!

So yeah, the world looks amazing, it’s so much fun to explore, and doing so feels so meaningful and enjoyable, due to how many ways you can explore and traverse it. In short, this is the ultimate Indiana Jones experience you could play, from the incredible level of detail, the look and feel of everything, and the reactive/on-the-fly gameplay which sees you messing around with the world, reacting and working off a flow that could change at the drop of Indiana Jones hat. It’s fantastic stuff, an immersive experience that truly captures the essence of adventure, immersive-slim gameplay that’s highly approachable and enjoyable to all sorts of gamers, and a great sense of pacing for action, stealth, and discovery.


Overall?

So, let me take a quote from my review “In short, this is the ultimate Indiana Jones experience you could play”. This is true, and much more! Not only is this the most compelling Indiana Jones gaming experience to date, but quite frankly one of the best adventure experiences in modern gaming for the last ten years. The Great Circle delivers all the fan service we could ask for, from a brilliant story, all those wonderful sound effects, and a Troy Baker performance which is easily one of his best. But it also brings about an impressive immersive-sim lite experience that’s enjoyable, and fun, and still captures a sense of challenge and reward that will delight hardcore and casual adventure gamers.

In 2024 it was difficult to nail down a game that truly stood out as the best of the best. The number one game that will leave its mark not only in 2024 but for the future. And I’m sure we found that game with Indiana Jones and The Great Circle.

+++ Fantastic story that delivers all the Indiana fan service, laughs and drama we could hope for
++ Performances, presentation, and sound design are phenomenal
++ Compelling adventure gameplay, with a wonderful sense of discovery, good puzzles, and free-roaming antics
++ Excellent reactionary gameplay, that ties together melee, gunplay, and decent stealth in a neat package
+ Runs at 60fps solid!

- Some puzzles are a little too easy, and some tombs are a little too dull
- AI can be wonky at times
- The first couple of hours are a little slow


The publisher kindly provided a review code for Indiana Jones and The Great Circle.