Indiana Jones and the Great Circle review — It belongs in a museum!

Indiana Jones is a cultural icon. The three original films are considered masterpieces of their time, sparking imitators, spinoffs, and homages to this day. While there have been Indiana Jones video games in the past, the closest gaming has come to replicating the sense of adventure and discovery of the films are the Tomb Raider and Uncharted games. Well, now MachineGames has thrown their fedora into the ring with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and there’s nothing quite like stepping into the shoes of the famous archeologist himself. The Great Circle perfectly understands why people fell in love with the character, and recreates the feeling of the films with you at the center.

It’s 1937, about a year after Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the game fully recreates that movie’s opening scene in a short dream sequence to kick things off. Thankfully, this is the most self indulgent and referential the game gets, as for the rest of the runtime the Great Circle is firmly doing its own thing. Anyway, a giant has stolen a cat mummy from Marshal College, and Indiana Jones is off to the Vatican to find out why. This sparks another globetrotting journey that feels just like a lost film from the 80s.

Great pains have clearly been taken to recreate the tone and feeling of the films, with some excellent writing and direction that almost never misses a beat. There’s exactly one fight scene in the game I felt was a bit too comedic considering the rest of the level’s tone, but even so it was pretty funny. When most people think of Indiana Jones, I’d bet they think of the big set pieces, the danger, and the climactic confrontation with the Nazis, but the films also had some slapstick comedy as well as more melancholy moments. Those are both present here. They’re perfectly paced, aside from that one scene I had an issue with, to keep you on the edge of your seat and relieve tension when needed. MachineGames understood the assignment, and went above and beyond here.

Indy’s companion this time around is the lovely Gina Lombardi, a reporter he meets undercover in the Vatican. She joins you and helps out with puzzles occasionally in each of the three major locations. She’s a very fun character, though she unfortunately often serves the role of reminding the player what they need to do next every few seconds when you’re just trying to explore. Still, I adored her charm and wit, with her often on the same level as Indy or ahead of him, depending on the circumstances. It makes for a great dynamic as they grow closer over the course of the game.

You meet a lot of great characters on the adventure, like the priest Antonio or fellow archeologist Dame Nawal (both of whom I would have loved to see more of), but the most important character to get right is Indy himself. His dialogue and mannerisms are pitch perfect here, with his single mindedness and love of history on full display. Sadly Troy Baker’s Harrison Ford impression can falter at times. His acting in and of itself is always top notch – he’s a great performer – but he’ll sometimes fall out of the impression and just sound like… well, Troy Baker. When he gets it, which is more often than not, he nails it and absolutely sounds like a young Ford, but when he doesn’t he can sound like a muppet version of the character.

Before we move on to the gameplay, we need to talk a bit about the music and sound effects. The sound effects are fantastic, with everything from the classic whip crack to punching Nazis feeling satisfying. The music seems to be directly lifted from the films a lot of the time, which is great for accentuating moments both in and out of gameplay, but as a consequence turning on streamer mode seems to remove most of the music entirely. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by Hi-Fi Rush’s two equally amazing soundtracks, but it’s a bit of a shame these tunes and jingles weren’t replaced by some more original ones. Outside of recording, however, I played the game with streamer mode turned off, and was able to enjoy the amazing music.

The first hour or so of The Great Circle may give a false impression of what the game is like. It puts you on a figurative railroad track to Vatican City, with no real time to explore Marshal College or the small slice of Rome as Indy sneaks into the city. You’re brawling, tip-toeing around Nazis, and knocking them out with whatever’s at hand while making your way through a mostly linear stage. This is still a lot of fun, but the core gameplay loop is even better.

Once you arrive at Vatican City and take care of some initial business, you’re essentially free to explore a small open world as you see fit. You can head straight for the main quest, or take some time to help NPCs, discover hidden temples and tombs to document what’s inside, find books to upgrade Indy’s skills, take pictures like a tourist, and much more. There’s a ton to do in the three major locations, and you don’t need to worry about missing anything as you can return to anywhere you’ve already been through Indy’s journal. I spent way too much time exploring the Vatican and Gizeh. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is just so fun, you can get lost in it for hours at a time.

Each level will focus on a different gameplay mechanic. For example, Gizeh is much more open and easy to get around, while the Vatican requires you to wear the appropriate disguise for the situation. Indy can change disguises at any time by accessing his satchel, which also holds key items, a persistent and repairable weapon, as well as snacks to temporarily boost his health or stamina. Bread will add another blue health bar to match the white ones, while fruit will add two stamina pips to the bar.

Obviously, you lose health when you take damage, but stamina has a lot more uses. It’s drained by just about any action Indy can take, from throwing a punch or lashing out with the whip, to simply climbing on a ledge. I’m sick of stamina systems, but the Great Circle does it pretty well, as stamina will recover quickly so long as you’re not doing something that drains it. You can take a moment to rest while hanging on to a cliff or back away from your opponent for a second when engaged in fisticuffs; it’ll come back in no time.

You’ll need that stamina too, because there’s a whole lot of platforming to do, even when just exploring the open world. Indy can grab onto and clamber up most things you’d think he can, though some you might miss are marked with white paint or cloth. You’ll want to look up frequently too, as there are tons of objects you can grapple onto with the whip, to either swing across a gap or climb up and down. If you keep an open mind and an eye out, there are sometimes multiple routes you can take while sneaking through an enemy encampment.

Of course, nothing’s stopping you from going in loud either. Nazis are pretty dumb (just like real life) and will take a second or two to spot Indy. During that time, you can smack them across the head with a shovel, sledgehammer, frying pan, or whatever else is lying around to knock them out quickly. If you’re spotted, however, it’s time to duke it out. Indy can punch with either fist, holding the left or right trigger to charge up a strike, block with LB, or quickly dodge with the A button. With a weapon in hand, controls are mostly the same except you can hold the left trigger to aim and then press the right to throw whatever’s in hand.

Guns offer a few more options. Of course, you can fire them to quickly take out Nazis, but that’ll alert anyone nearby. You can also press the X button to flip the gun around and use it as an improvised melee weapon, though it’ll still break after a few hits like any other implement. I had a blast spending most of the game being as stealthy as I could, though I did eventually resort to using firearms after a few sections where shooting was mandatory. This self imposed challenge was a ton of fun though, and I would encourage players to keep to the shadows as much as they can because taking out an entire camp without anyone spotting you is incredibly satisfying.

That brings me to my biggest gripe with the game: the Nazis are too dumb and easy to take down. The first few hours are tense when sneaking around, but once you realize that they take forever to notice you and only go down in a few hits even if they do, it saps some of the tension. By the end of the game, if an enemy was alone I would just sprint towards them and two-shot them, as they have no chance to call for help in time. Even if they do, they’ll only call enemies nearby, as only captains can alert an entire base.

I did up the combat difficulty all the way to the maximum, but that didn’t really make anything harder unless I was in direct conflict with three or more enemies.That was essentially a death sentence on hard, but with an ability that you get early on, you can go right back into stealth after dying, albeit with basically no health left. This does give you the feeling of fight scenes in the films, but outside of the final boss, combat is almost trivial, even if it’s still fun.

As for puzzles, there are only two difficulty options here, and again I played on the highest. This feels a lot more balanced, with most puzzles being fun brain teasers that don’t block progression. There were two times a puzzle totally stumped me, and only one of those was on the critical path. If you do get stuck on a mandatory puzzle, you can take additional pictures of the puzzle objects in question with Indy’s camera for some hints. For that puzzle I got stuck on, it turned out I had already solved it and just needed to look in the right place to continue, though it took a few hints to get the game to tell me that. It’s not perfect, but it’s a good system that’ll get you on the right track or eventually tell you the answer if you really need it.

There are tons of puzzles hidden just about everywhere in the game, from bigger mechanisms that control doors in temples to finding the code to a safe by solving a board game. They’re all a lot of fun, even if they don’t have the context of a side quest to back them up, though the ones that do are always a highlight. You’ll want to comb over every inch of the world, because you’re bound to find something interesting.

Unless otherwise stated, the product in this article was provided for review purposes.

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