Posted in: Bethesda Softworks, Games, Lucasfilm Games, Review, Video Games | Tagged: indiana jones, Indiana Jones and The Great Circle

The Short Quest: We Review Indiana Jones & The Great Circle

Does this game belong in a museum or boxed away by top men? We threw on a fedora to review Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Of all the franchises where people have wanted a modern video game based on it, Indiana Jones has to be sitting in the top ten all-time IPs. There have been many video games released over the past four decades centered around the iconic Harrison Ford character, some good and some mediocre, but we haven't had a proper title based on the character since 2009. Fifteen years later, Bethesda Softworks and MachineGames, in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games, created Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. An all-new first-person action-adventure title featuring Indy in search of yet another relic of great significance that the Nazis are trying to collect and use for their own purposes. But is this game an amazing treasure, or should it be locked away and never be seen again? We grabbed our fedora and whip as we tread lightly into this latest review.

So, let's get to brass tacks here. The game takes place in 1937, two years before the start of World War II. Canonically, this is two years after the events of The Temple Of Doom and a year before The Last Crusade. Dr. Jones is awakened by a rather large burglar at the university who steals a specific relic, leading him to figure out that he must travel to the Vatican to figure out what great significance it has. Without getting too heavy into spoilers, you discover that there's a greater plot happening involving an ancient relic that could have global implications. But to what end, you're not sure. All you know for sure is that Nazis are involved, which is never a good thing, and it's up to you to figure out what The Great Circle is and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.

Without sounding insulting, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is about as basic an adventure game as you can get. You use a combination of stealth and weapons to navigate various locations where you'll take out enemies in a number of ways. Some of them even being creative. Most of the time, you try to stealth your way up to someone with a weapon or use your whip to disarm them head-on before resorting to fisticuffs. When you're not fighting enemies, you'll be navigating the map system, which was cleverly done by using paper maps you hold in your hand, or solving puzzles to figure out your way through some of the tougher areas of the game. You have a journal where you'll keep items of importance so you can reference them later. But beyond that, all you have is a whip, a gun, and your own sense of direction. Making it a challenge but a pretty fun one.

The game has a number of issues that will get on your nerves. A good chunk of this game relies on you being stealthy, but the reality is you make so much noise that it's a wonder these fascists never hear you. Other times, there are just too many guards and no alternative paths to skip them. Most of the time, you're better off speedrunning the levels by grabbing weapons and bashing as quickly as you can before alarm whistles are blown. You do have access to disguises, but sometimes those just don't work out when you need them to. The map system, while creative for the use of something that would be akin to real-life, can be a pain in the ass when navigating large areas filled with enemies. The gun, and for that matter most guns in the game, are pretty useless as ammo is scarce, and you have better aim with your whip than any firearm. The puzzles can be challenging, but other times, it's a paint-by-numbers scenario where the solution is practically (and at least one time, literally) spelled out for you.

The saving grace of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is the cinematics and the storyline, which are also tied to many of the puzzles. What the team has successfully done with few complaints from us is create a pretty damn good Indiana Jones movie. It has a plot that makes about as much sense as any of the others, just in case some of you nitpickers want to jump in here, but it is a fun adventure with an understandable plot and a villain who has fundamental reasoning for doing what he's doing. You can grasp what he's trying to achieve while also despising him and knowing you must defeat him, which I know is odd making this a positive, but I cannot begin to tell you how many games I've played in the past two years where an antagonist's reasons make little sense. They've done a great job of capturing what makes an Indiana Jones movie exciting and fun to watch, bottled it up, and hooked a game controller up to it.

Overall, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a pretty good game. It has some faults to it, but the story makes up for it. That said, this could have been so much more. Call it dev crunch, call it time constraints, call it basic game design; whatever flavor of excuse you feel like putting in here. Beyond the creative puzzles and fun level designs, the reality is there are better Tomb Raider and Uncharted games out there that do much of the same thing. If we were solely basing this off the gameplay, this would be an average, almost unremarkable, adventure game at best. What makes it a really good game is the story tied to the action, which we will admit, the nostalgia is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here.

It really makes me believe this game was made with the intention of not being all that difficult so Indiana Jones fans could play an interactive movie without issues. This is the focal point of what we believe is the difference between this game being good or bland. If it did not have the Indiana Jones IP and world attached to it, we're pretty sure this would be a forgettable title. It would be a 6 out of 10, at best. And that's super disappointing, especially from the companies involved in making this. The only reason we're rating it as high as we are is because we got an interactive movie from a memorable character that didn't completely suck. And yes, it is possible to get a terrible Indiana Jones game; just go look up Indiana Jones & The Staff Of Kings for the Wii. We're sure the developers won't complain about getting the rating we're giving it, but we expected better and know for a fact they could have done better.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

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Review by Gavin Sheehan

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9/10

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle does an amazing job of bringing players back into the film franchise with a fun adventure. But it also feels like this could have been much more than just an interactive movie.

Credits

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Publisher

Bethesda Softworks

Developer

MachineGames

In Collaboration With

Lucasfilm Games

Release Date

December 9, 2024

Reviewed On

Xbox Series X|S

Also Available On

PC, PS5 (2025)

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