Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Review: Fortune and Glory

In games, like In the movie, Indiana Jones had a hard time. The intrepid archaeologist exploited on the big screen recently met with a lukewarm reception at best, with 2008. The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and 2023 The Dial of Destiny both fail to recapture the excitement of the original 1980s trilogy; so, too, are his gaming excursions beaten. A defunct Facebook game, a handful of mobile endeavors, and a couple of Lego forays over the last 15 years are all poor follow-throughs. The fate of Atlantis. Fortunately, The Great Circle marks a reversal of fortune. This is an impressive enough adventure to stand alongside Spielberg’s finest cinematic moments.

It could go the other way. In the beginning, developer MachineGames hewed too closely to the film model, with an intro sequence that almost shot-for-shot (minus the first-person perspective) replicates the opening to Raiders of the Lost Ark. The result is a linear experience that feels afraid to deviate from the Holy Trilogy, reverent of its standing to the point of shyness. Fortunately, this is largely limited to just the tutorial section – one boulder escape and a salvaged fedora later, we jump to 1937 and the game starts to show what’s really done.

Put it in between Raiders and The last crusade, The Great Circle begins well when a seemingly unimportant relic is stolen from the academic home of Dr. Jones of Marshall College by a towering man in black, the only clue left is a pendant pointing Indy to the Vatican. Faster than you can pack a whip and draw a red line on a map, Indy teams up with investigative reporter Gina Lombardi to uncover an ancient order of giants, all while chasing Nazi madman Emmerich Voss, who is trying to uncover occult forces to give Hitler a supernatural edge in the war.

Rather than going the fully open world route, MachineGames instead opts for contained sandbox areas for each scene. From the Vatican to Giza (now Giza), to Sukhothai in Siam (now Thailand), each stage of Voss’s hunt is magnificently realized and full of mysteries to uncover, but not so great that exploration becomes a chore. There’s fantastic verticality in places, from jumping over rooftop mazes to climbing through crypts, making each area feel even bigger. Although some elements repeat in every key setting – find a disguise to blend in, help some locals, try to find key artifacts before Voss – it’s unlikely to stand still enough to always be stagnant or repetitive.

The result is that The Great Circle it almost feels like two games in one, depending on your preferred play style. Barrel through quest core objectives, and is a zippy, interactive Indiana Jones movie, packed with all the humor, emotions, and charm audiences have come to love. Take your time to remove each collection and solve each ancient puzzle, and it feels like an evolution of Uncharted o Tomb Raiderthe two gaming franchises most influenced by Indiana Jones in the first place. A great circle, indeed.

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It’s all quite a departure from the first developer Wolfenstein games While there’s no shortage of Nazis (or Italian Blackshirts, or Imperial Japanese soldiers) for Indy to punch out, there isn’t necessarily any benefit to killing every fascist you encounter. The emphasis is firmly on stealth, subterfuge via disguises, and the judicious use of combat only when necessary. Opening fire on enemies is only likely to attract even more unwanted attention, which rarely ends well – much better to use any gun as a cudgel to quietly knock enemies unawares. Occasionally you are treated to a pithily sardonic punchline from Indy in the process.

Melee combat is one of the great strengths of The Great Circle. Whether it’s a Nazi guard in the back with a rifle butt delivered stealthily or bare-knuckle boxing by hand, every blow lands with an incredibly satisfying weight. It feels completely authentic to the character – Indy has not been reimagined in the mold of of Wolfenstein BJ Blazkowiczshooting anything that moves. He’s still the flawed and extremely fragile hero who goes by luck more often than brute force. That sense of vulnerability creates opportunities for Indy’s perfect moments, like lunging to knock down a Nazi captain who has spotted you, killing him at the last second before he can alert the others with his whistle. Everything is heard fantastic.