Before we had Nathan Drake, we had Lara Croft. And before we had Lara Croft, we had Professor Henry Jones, perhaps more popularly known as Indiana Jones.
Despite a disastrous fifth entry in the film franchise, Indy has endured in the pop culture zeitgeist since the 80s as one of the most iconic characters to ever grace the big screen. It’s past due for him to get his own proper video game outing, and MachineGames certainly hasn’t disappointed on that front.
Set between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is an all-new adventure that has Indy going on a globetrotting adventure while digging up lost artifacts and punching the ever-loving crap out of a bunch of Nazis and fascists. Big picture thoughts? It’s an enjoyable romp that largely plays it safe but still manages to capture the cheesy charm of the original trilogy. And that’s a huge boon in its own right.
Our story begins in Marshall College, where Indy is at his day job, teaching archaeology and history (it’s the pursuit of facts, not truth!). Things go awry when a mysterious, menacing man breaks into the college at night and steals a seemingly unimportant artifact, though not before you try to stop him in a very one-sided fistfight. The only clue Indy has to go on is a strange medallion that the man dropped during the kerfuffle, and before you know it, you’re off to the Vatican City in Rome.
As the story unfolds, you quickly learn that various sites of spiritual significance have been built all over the world throughout its history. When you map them out, they form a perfect circle around the globe, AKA the Great Circle. The game takes you to some truly magnificent and impressive locales, including Gizeh in Egypt, Sukhothai in Thailand, and the Himalayas. Because the story is set before World War II, most of the enemies you come up against are part of the Axis Powers, including main antagonist Emmerich Voss, who makes use of psychology to manipulate his foes.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is also supported by a small but solid cast of side characters, including investigative reporter Gina Lombardi, who’s also pursuing the case and other Great Circle sites for her own agenda. Much like in the movies, the side characters and villains themselves may not be all that complex, but they lean so hard into the tropes they’re meant to represent that you can’t help but feel charmed by them as you get further into the story.
That same sense of silliness extends into the gameplay as well. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is played through a first-person perspective, and while you do have access to a revolver and other firearms, it’s clear that you’re never really meant to use them except as a last resort. For the most part, you’re encouraged to sneak around, engage in one-on-one fistfights, and use the environment to your advantage.
You’ll quickly find that Indy will be at a great disadvantage even in two-on-one encounters, and it’s virtually impossible for him to fight his way through swarms of enemies, Nathan Drake style. With that in mind, you’ll want to pick up the closest object you can find and use it to quietly take down your enemies with no fuss.
The stealth itself is equal parts satisfying and comical. What makes The Great Circle feel so distinct is that you rarely feel like you’re using conventional weapons to fight your enemies. In fact, most of the time, I found myself reaching for household items like frying pans, brooms, and rolling pins to bonk my enemies over the head with. To make things even better, said bonk would always be accompanied by a satisfying clunk sound (or a flat thwap, if you’re punching instead) that echoes for just a second longer than it should, creating that cartoonish sound effect that always made the movies so endearing.
There are various skill books you can find along the way, including my personal favorite, the Lucky Hat. This is basically a revive that you can use once after getting downed in-game. What happens is that Indy will have the chance to crawl towards his fedora after getting his HP drained, and if you make it, he’ll stand up, put the hat on his head, and look at his enemies with the smarmiest grin you’ll ever see. Truly, the most joy I had while playing The Great Circle was mounting an awesome comeback with Lucky Hat, pushing a Nazi off a ledge, and having Indy say something snarky like, “And that’s Professor to you!”
Other skill books in the game will improve your fighting abilities to help make combat feel a bit more diverse, allowing you to shape Indy into the type of fighter that best suits your play style, but not by much. For the most part, the hand-to-hand combat is a matter of blocking and parrying at the right times, and landing punches where you can.
Because this is an Indiana Jones game, the iconic whip also plays a large role in the overall experience. As you might expect, it can be used as a weapon to smack your opponents around a little bit, distract them, or trip them up. At the same time, it’s also used for traversal and puzzle-solving, and what made The Great Circle so fun to play was the feeling that you could always rely on your whip to get around most tricky obstacles and situations.
Whether you’re using it to swing across a crevasse, or disarming a foe by whipping at their hands, the whip feels like a natural extension of Indy’s arm, and its tactility reminded me of the Leviathan Axe from God of War and how satisfying that thing felt to use. All in all, I loved that combat rarely ever revolved around the use of firearms and conventional weapons that you’d expect from a first-person game. MachineGames was able to put their innovation and creativity on full display here with the variety of random items and fun environs you could use to your advantage, even if the fistfights themselves aren’t really anything to write home about.
Of course, it wouldn’t be an Indiana Jones game without puzzles and riddles, of which The Great Circle offers in spades. Generally speaking, the puzzles are rather easy to figure out, with most of the clues being available to you either in Indy’s own journal or in your surroundings. What I particularly enjoyed, though, was being left to my own devices whenever I did get stuck on the odd puzzle or two, without any annoying dialogue prompts from Indy to nudge me towards the solution.
It’s also worth pointing out that the environments you get to explore in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle are pretty massive. There’s a main path to follow in each zone, but every so often, you’ll get the chance to travel off the beaten path and potentially uncover new smaller side quests and even more puzzles to tackle. Personally, I found that this could ruin the pacing a little, and I would’ve preferred if the game were more focused on the main story over these diversions, as it was the story that kept me invested.
With that said, however, there’s no denying that MachineGames has spared no effort in making this historical time period come to life. The Gizeh markets, in particular, buzzed with life and excitement, and the game does a stellar job of making you feel like you really have been dropped straight into the 1930s.
Tying everything together is the exceptional soundtrack that uses John Williams’ brilliant score as a foundation and builds on it. There are little twinkles and flourishes in the music whenever you knock an enemy out or pick up something of import, and it’s in these little details that really make the game feel like a true labor of love.
Perhaps the highest order of compliment I could pay to Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is that it completely wiped the travesty that is The Dial of Destiny from my memory, and I say this as a major Crystal Skull apologist. It’s a video game that doesn’t necessarily take very many risks and feels safe, yes, but it’s also a crystallization of what makes Indy such a beloved icon in film and pop culture. And that’s all I needed it to be.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle releases for PC and Xbox on Dec. 9, 2024. A review code for the game was provided by the publisher. Reviewed on PC via Steam.
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