These days there are less and less things we can collectively agree upon, it seems. Even something simple like which way toilet paper should be placed on the holder seems to generate instant division. But surely the one thing we can all agree upon as a species is that there are three Indiana Jones movies, right? The series just stopped right there. Well, until now that is, because I’m pleased to report we have a fourth Indiana Jones movie and it’s a videogame from the talented folk at MachineGames.
They could have played to their greatest strength and turned Indiana Jones into a shooter, and while that would have really gone against the movies it would make perfect sense; Machine Games are known for gunning down Nazis in brutally spectacular fashion, after all. And they could have gone down the boring, obvious route of making a set piece heavy, balls-to-the-wall action game in the same vein as Uncharted and Tomb Raider. It would have been entirely justified – Indiana Jones inspired both of those franchises. Either of those routes would have been understandable.
Available On: PC, Xbox Series S/X
Reviewed On: Xbox Series S
Developed By: MachineGames
Published By: Bethesda Softworks
But that isn’t what Machine Games did. This isn’t an action-packed adventure romp full of games and destruction. It’s a slower, more immersive experience that has hints of Disohonored, Prey and Ghostwire Tokyo. It even has elements of The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher’s Bay, because as you might know the creators of that game, Starbreeze Studios, went on to found MachineGames. It’s almost like an immersive sim lite. There are epic set-pieces sprinkled throughout and even the occasional shoot-out, but mostly this is a slower game that focuses on stealth, puzzle-solving and disguises.
The opening sequence is a 1-to-1 recreation of Raiders of the Lost Ark, immediately transporting me back to a magical time when I first watched Indiana running from a massive rolling boulder. But I admit that I was worried: was the game just going to be re-treading the first movie? As iconic as the boulder scene is, it’s not quite as effective when you’re playing in first-person and can’t see the thing you’re running from. My fears were unfounded though, as this sequence was just Dr. Jones dreaming. This is actually a wholly new adventure that fits canonically between the first movie and The Last Crusde, even going so far as to offer a little more insight into what happened to Marion. But like the other movies it’s also a standalone adventure that can be enjoyed without much prior experience, although naturally a passion for the films will drastically increase the enjoyment factor.
Indiana is back teaching students when an impossibly large man (played by the late Tony Todd) breaks into the university and steals an artifact. Having unsuccessfully gone toe-to-toe with the giant, Indy sets out to retrieve the relic, dragging him into a globe-trotting adventure that pits him against Voss, a Nazi archaeologist hellbent on acquiring the power of The Great Circle. But he does have an ally in the form of Gina, an intrepid journalist searching for her lost sister.
Easily the most impressive aspect of The Great Circle is how seamlessly it taps into the Indiana Jones vibe, telling an entertaining romp that feels like it was ripped straight out of a forgotten Indiana Jones movie. There are heaps of lavish cutscenes, including in all of the side-content, that capture the framing of the movies along with the often slapstick style of comedy. Seriously, this game made me properly laugh, especially a fantastic scene early on involving Indy dressed as a priest having to listen to a Nazi’s confession about getting his mother-in-law pregnant. Sure, it doesn’t always manage to replicate the feel of the films, but it nails it far more often than not.
The prolific Troy Baker took the unenviable task of donning Indiana Jones’ hat and whip, and with it the choice between imitating the iconic Harrison Ford or giving the role his own twist. Baker and MachineGames opted for imitation and I’m glad they did because Baker is surprisingly talented at capturing Harrison Ford’s voice. Perhaps if I had sat down and watched the original trilogy right before picking up the game I could hear a more pronounced difference, but that wasn’t the case. I can hear Troy’s voice in certain words, but for the most part, I can close my eye and believe it’s Harrison Ford reprising the role.
As for the facial modeling, it’s an intriguing mix of Harrison Ford and Troy Baker. You can definitely see Baker’s face, but it’s mostly Harrison Ford.
Outside of Indy the supporting cast is strong, a simple but memorable bunch who come and go throughout the adventure. That is, aside from two: Gina serves as the standard love interest for the bulk of the game as well as being Indy’s sidekick. She is much more involved than Indy’s lady companions though, and by making her a journalist Machine Games ensure she can contribute to the adventure, often jumping in when Indy’s historical knowledge can’t help out. It’s just a shame that because the game takes place in the middle of the movies we already know she doesn’t stick around. And, of course, we also know Indy isn’t in any real danger.
Without a doubt though, it’s the game’s antagonist, Emmerich Voss, who proves the most memorable character in the game outside of Dr. Jones. Voss is the Nazi mirror of Jones in some respects but also plays up the buffoonish, over-the-top qualities of the Nazi’s in the original movies. He’s highly intelligent and takes an almost perverse delight in mentally bullying the idiotic Nazi’s that surround him. He clearly holds Indiana Jones in deep regard and seems to want to be able to talk to the man archaeologist to archaeologist, but of course that’s impossible. The dynamic between the two is excellent, and Marios Gavrilis brings a manic, menacing and yet goofy energy to the role. This might be MachineGames best villain to date, which is saying something given their pedigree.
The game is mostly made up of smaller hub worlds like the Vatican and Gizeh, each an open environment where you are free to explore, find collectibles and tackle optional side-content. Missions which don’t involve clambering around ancient monuments tend to feature plenty of ways to reach your objective. To get into a Nazi holding area, for example, you might zipline down to the roof and sneak in through an open window, or maybe you’ll find a gap in the fence, amble through and then slide underneath the building where a handy hatch will lead you straight to your objective. It’s not quite Dishonored or Hitman in terms of flexibility, but nonetheless there’s a decent amount of options available for tackling areas. It should make my inevitable second playthrough on PlayStation in 2025 more enjoyable.
Or you could go for a disguise. Sometimes you’re handed one, other times you have to go looking for it, but regardless of how you get one a disguise is absurdly powerful, letting you sidle into areas without fear. It’s almost too strong, because avoiding the few officers who can see through the disguise is pretty easy. I’m glad disguises in the later areas at least take some effort to acquire, because otherwise it’d almost feel unfair to the Nazis. Almost.
Without a disguise you’ll be doing plenty of sneaking around, evading patrolling guards and performing stealth takedowns. Indy isn’t capable of just knocking someone out though; he needs an item to clobber them with. It’s a good thing the levels are littered with hammers, bottles, broomsticks, wrenches, sticks and other assorted items that are highly effective at bonking Nazi skulls. There are some great takedown animations, too. That said, the stealth aspects are somewhat let down by the stupidity of the Nazis. Yeah, their apparent blindness and unwillingness to immediately use their guns kind of fits into the Indiana Jones vibe of Nazis being clowns, but it also makes the stealth weaker than it could have been. Still fun, just not as good as possible.
The other type of gameplay that MachineGames focuses on is classic Indiana Jones adventuring across and through ancient ruins, temples, monuments and other assorted old stuff in the name of archealogy! Or grave robbing, if you prefer to think of it that way. Point is, these sections are more linear, making fun use of Indiana’s iconic whip which can be used to swing from the scenery and clamber up walls. Sadly, you can’t just use it wherever you want like Spider-Man except with Harrison Ford under the mask instead of Peter Parker, but that limitation aside it feels bloody great. And the noise the whip makes is *chef’s kiss* fucking fantastic.
Puzzle solving is a big part of messing around in tombs because apparently ancient civilizations loved nothing more than ensuring that anyone coming for a visit would have to spend 30 minutes figuring out an elaborate series of hints and mechanisms just to get to the bloody bathroom. What impressed me here is that almost every single puzzle, including those in the side-content, feels different to all the rest. Yes, there are general concepts that are repeated like identifying symbols, but even then the game does an excellent job in dressing those ideas up in ways that make them seem less familiar. And who doesn’t like a puzzle dressed up in a sexy outfit, eh?
Given MachineGames history of making bombastic, badass Wolfenstein games, it feels like a ballsy choice to make guns the very last resort in The Great Circle. A lot of the Nazi’s you clobber wield bang-sticks of varying type, but ammo is limited and gunning someone down usually results in a fascist tidal wave heading your way. Which is exactly why tapping X while holding a gun causes Indy to flip the weapon over and use it as a club instead.
If stealth has failed and unleashing a hail of bullets isn’t an option, you can also always put up your dukes! It wouldn’t be an Indiana Jones adventure without some punch-ups after all. You can block incoming strikes and hit back using the triggers, or shove or clinch opponents. There’s no much to the fighting, but the sound effects make landing a punch particularly satisfying, as do the excellent animations of Nazis staggering around before slowly collapsing to the ground. It’s a little detail that pays homage to the movies.
The main storyline offers up a thrilling adventure packed full of fun character moments, dramatic revelations and plenty of scenes where Indiana looks thoughtfully off into the distance before stunned realisation washes across his face as he finally pieces something important together. It also has some rather cool set pieces, including a fucking mental sequence involving a battleship and a mountain that morphs into a quick journey to Japan so that Indy can hijack a plane in mid-air. Does that sound insane? That’s because it is. But it also fits neatly into the craziness that happens in Indy’s adventures, as well as way in which Dr. Jones pinballs from one piece of serendipity to the next.
But let’s not forget all of the side content. There are plenty of smaller mysteries to tackle, but the meaty stuff comes in the Field Work. These missions include lavish cutscenes equal to anything found in the main storyline, as well as chunky sub-plots which expand and flesh out the overarching narrative. In fact, some of this stuff is so important it feels like it should be mandatory. Like, most of the side-content with Gina fleshes out her character so much that without it she’s wouldn’t be anywhere near as compelling. The point is, the optional stuff feels like it has had just as much time, love and passion poured into as the main storyline.
Throughout the game, you earn Adventure Points by completing quests, solving mysteries, picking up relics and snapping photos of interesting subjects. These points can then be spent on purchasing new abilities and upgrades for Indy, but there’s a fun catch: the skills are all physical books that have to be discovered. Some are placed in your path like little gifts from the gods, but the majority are hidden away, encouraging you to wander off the beaten path.
Indiana Jones being flawed and taking hits that leave him out of breath, dazed and stumbling is one of the best part’s of the films. He’s imperfect which makes him a far more relatable character. However, this is one area in which I wish the The Great Circle hadn’t replicated the movies, because the game is most certainly flawed in one key area: polish. The longer I played the more technical snafus I noticed, ranging from button presses not registering to characters sliding along the ground. At one point I even got stuck in an infinite loop where I had fallen to my death, only to respawn in mid-air and die again until I manually reloaded. Most of the glitches, bugs and hiccups were small and sometimes outright funny, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that the game is in rougher shape than Indy’s jacket. The good news is that MachineGames are already working on the issues.
As a side-note, I did review this game on the Xbox Series S. Unsurprisingly, Microsoft’s cheapest console isn’t exactly pushing the boundaries when it comes to graphical fidelity, especially compared to the Xbox Series X and PC versions of the game which look drop-dead gorgeous. The Series S has a much lower resolution and blurrier textures. And don’t bother downloading the optional high resolution texture pack because the Series S can’t use it, making it all the more baffling that MachineGames lets Series S users download it at all. That said, the raw performance is actually solid. The game runs at 60fps and while it does drop on occasion, it hits the target most of the time. And even on the weaker hardware, the game still looks quite good. Just keep in mind that the images adorning this review are the official ones provided by Bethesda Games because Xbox likes to make transferring screenshots needlessly obtuse.
In Conclusion…
Quite simply, I love Indiana Jones and The Great Circle. It is, quite possibly, my favourite game of the year or – at the very least – right up there.
However, I also have to concede that it isn’t going to be for everyone. The slower, more methodical pacing and the emphasis on keeping you immersed in the game gives The Great Circle a speed that might bore some people, especially anyone wanting a more bombastic adventure. For me though, the pacing was exceIlent. I adored the slower style of the game, the sneaking about, the fist-fights, the slow exploration of massive underground structures while holding aloft a burning torch. Forgive the horrible cliche, but does make me feel like Indiana Jones for a few moments, and that feeling is god damn awesome. Indy was my hero, and this game absolutely nails the vibe of the movies on almost every level.
But it does have flaws. It’s a bit rough around the edges, a bit clunky in some of its execution of its ideas and some of the contrived moments go from capturing the tone of the movies to being a little much.
I don’t care though. I’m having too much fun. And my excessive use of the whip might be bordering on problematic.
