Right before christmas I thought to myself: what game could I play on the side when my several hour long JRPG starts to cause a little burnout? Something unique, maybe on the newer side that justifies spending money on Gamepass maybe? And so it came to be that my attention landed on the new game from MachineGames Studios i.e. the developers behind the wildly successful Wolfenstein reboots from not too long ago (ok, lets ignore Youngblood for a moment). Knowing the quality of this studio, their knack for not taking their games all too seriously most of the time and their talent for great combat, I figured Indiana Jones and the Great Circle would be a great game to dive into.
As with all my game reviews, I mainly focus on three aspects: the technical aspects, the gameplay and the story – in no particular order. So let me dive into the aspect that immediately struck me:
The technical aspects – a faithful recreation of Indiana Jones
Fans of Indy and his outings will immediately recognize the incredible work done on capturing the spirit of the movies. The game opens up with an as close of a frame-by-frame remake of the original movies famous temple scene. This trend of faithfully recreating the look and feel of the movies continues throughout the entire game. The visuals are maybe not the most impressive by today’s standards, but they work really well at setting the scene for this globe trotting adventure. Character models look pretty good for the most part, but where the visuals truly shine is when the game opens up and shows you the wonderful it has crafted for you. Whether it’s the Vatican or at the peaks of the Himalayas, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle knows how to deliver spectacle.
The music is quite fitting, using the full array of the movie’s soundtrack to give you the unmistakable feeling of being in the movies. And if the soundtrack doesn’t quite get you there, the superb voice acting will surprise you. While it would have been great to have Harrison Ford play out his role in this game, Troy Baker does such an incredible job at being Indiana Jones, that any feeling of disappointment regarding Ford’s absence was swept away immediately. Thankfully, it’s not just Indy that is voiced well. Supporting characters such as your companion Gina Lombardi as well as the German antagonist Emmerich Voss are brought to life by a stellar performance by their actors. Taken as a whole, all these aspects result in an incredibly polished game. It sounds and looks fantastic!
The story – a story that stands on near-equal footing as the original trilogy
The incredible detail given to the games visuals and sound design clearly also went towards the script. If it wasn’t for the obvious fact that the original trilogy came out several decades before this game, you would be forgiven to believe that this game’s story was written by the same people. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle tells of a fantastical tale that features all the tropes and turns, jokes and wit you are used to from the movies.
Without spoiling much, the story is set right after the events of the first movie “Raiders of the lost Ark”. Indiana awakes in his study at the university and has an encounter with a “giant” who has stolen one of the artifacts kept there: a cat mummy. From there on Indiana tries to uncover why this specific artifact was stolen, what the mystery of the great circle is all about and most of all, why the nazis and the italian fascists are after the secret as well.
While I will not disclose how many locations you will visit, fans of Indiana will not be upset at the amount of locations visited. In fact, this is one aspect that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle may have gone a little overboard with. There are a lot of locations and at some point, I was just wishing for the storytelling to neatly “pack things up” and come to a conclusion. But alas, this is a videogame, and as such players expect a game of a certain length.
The gameplay – a bit of a mixed bag.
So we have established that Indiana sounds great, looks fantastic and goes on an adventure worthy of the movies. But how does the game actually play out? For the most part the game does exactly what Indy does in the movies, you sneak around, solve puzzles, do some light climbing and getting into fist and gunfights. Unlike most other games of the first person genre, however, most of your time is spent sneaking around and avoiding combat.
As you traverse the globe in the search for the next clue to the great circle, you will come across multiple locations which act as mini-open world experiences. In one of the earliest destinations, the Vatican, you are given a clear quest line that you can follow to move the story along, as you wander the holy city you will quite frequently be made aware of sub quests, such as helping a distraught nun, or figuring out the secret of a large dig site overrun by black shirts. The main quest lines remind me a lot of the movies, where you uncover secret tunnels, shrines and the likes while solving puzzles. The puzzles themselves could’ve been picked straight out of the movies. You redirect light to jewels to open up passages, play an ancient chess like game and much more. It’s quite beautifully crafted. The smaller quests work in a similar, toned down sort of way. Personally I would highly recommend going out of your way for at least a couple of these quests as they do add a bit more context to the world around you, but more importantly let you learn more skills and let you earn more cash to expand on these skills.
Character progression occurs in only one meaningful way: scouring the world looking out for manuals, handbooks and comics each one teaching Indy a new skill, such as being able to use your heavy attack quicker. These skills are then unlocked by using the money you find in the world (or steal off of Germans and Italians).
Sprinkled in between your individual quest lines are smaller combat sections. Combat largely focuses on hand to hand combat. Indy can punch using either fist (controlled by either the left or right triggers), he can dodge, and block incoming attacks. You can also pick up weapons and heavy objects to use as a weapon. However, that’s kind of it; and to make matters worse, the fist combat just doesn’t quite land properly. I would be remiss to forget that you can use your whip to draw enemies closer or to stun them, but I found the whip to be quite finicky in that it doesn’t really work how I want it to half the time. Furthermore, you can whip out your revolver to partake in some rather uninspired gunplay. Ultimately, I felt that the combat aspects were definitely the worst parts of the game. Being locked in continuous fist fights is honestly not all that interesting and ammo is so scarce at times that you also don’t want to use your revolver (it also doesn’t feel very Indy-like to kill your enemies with guns all the time). Especially towards the endgame, where there are also so many enemies that it’s easy to be swarmed, meaning stealth is truly the best option for making it through the game. Given the sometimes clunky nature of the combat I guess this isn’t too bad, but I didn’t sign up for a stealth simulator either.
Conclusion
So where does Indiana Jones and the Great Circle land for me? The game is an incredibly faithful recreation of the Indy we know from the movies, with a lot of love and attention going to minute details. You can tell that the voice actors were having fun with their roles and that everyone involved has a true appreciation as to what they are creating here. The gameplay is that aforementioned mixed bag. The game does a great job trying to capture the “mystery” aspect of Indiana Jones. Solving (light) puzzles, discovering hidden temples and artifacts, and having to escape the clutches of your enemies at the last possible moment feels great. The whole package is soured a little bit by the stale combat and maybe slightly too long narrative.
MachineGames have created a wonderful experience here that I sincerely hope they continue building on. The Great Circle is a work that oozes admiration for its source material, and while I wouldn’t necessarily play it a second time, I would have regretted not playing it.