A couple of years ago when Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was announced with James Mangold directing, it was tough not to think that Mangold had a large task ahead of him. Taking an iconic character and putting together a story that was worthy of the previous entries in the Indiana Jones saga probably came with an ark load of pressure. Satisfying a fanbase that felt scorned from the last film and preparing yourself emotionally for everyone’s opinion on your creation could not have felt great for Mangold. Still, love it or hate it, the film did the Indiana Jones series justice and ended the character’s career on a good note. Not the best film, but a good one.
My point in all of that rambling is that people who undertake the task of bringing Indiana Jones to life, be it games or movies, have a tremendous amount of pressure to get it right. One slip and the entire thing falls apart and a fanbase will remember you for it.
Fast-forward to last year’s announcement of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle from developer MachineGames and publisher Bethesda Softworks, and the expectations are still out of this world high and heavy. There was a lot of skepticism about how mechanics were going to work, what story they were going to tell, and the boldness of developing our favorite grave digger with a first-person perspective. Lots of unknowns, lots of uncertainties, and a big payoff was the result.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a game that is worthy of the Indiana Jones film series. The mechanics were surprisingly intuitive, the adventure was engaging and interesting, with quite a few pitstops along the way, and the first-person perspective was the right move. While the menu navigation could have been better, this game certainly exceeded all my expectations. So, skepticism has been put to rest.
So, put on that hat, have your whip at the ready, and let’s go on a review adventure.
Story
DISCLAIMER: I’m going to skim over the story details a bit, as I do not want to give anything away, but I will certainly talk about how I felt about it.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is set between Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and deals with Nazis on the hunt for powerful ancient objects that they’re hoping will turn the tides of war in their favor. Along the way, Jones encounters supernatural beings, plenty of puzzles, and the need to save the world before it’s too late. A typical hero adventure.
As I put in the disclaimer, I’m not giving much away here. I think there are a lot of twists and turns in the story that deserve discovering, so I won’t be partaking in revealing them. Now, that said, I do think this story has different gears it kicks into along the way. The first couple of hours will leave you wondering where the hell everything is going. The narrative starts slow but then gradually begins to piece things together, introducing the main players in the story, and eventually kicks into fifth gear when plot points are revealed.
It feels like West World with its speed and reveal, where all the pieces are laid out in front of you and as you get more and more, everything begins to make sense. If you have never seen WW, then just know that the ending truly brings everything together, and the slow journey to get there was worth the price of admission.
I know that doesn’t tell you much, and I’m intentionally vague about the details here, but the story is worthy of the Indiana Jones series. A well-defined villain, a few protagonists that may not immediately understand Jones’ intentions, and plenty of action and suspense to keep your attention locked in.
If you’re concerned about the story, I think you can just move on and stop worrying.
What I can tell you about gameplay
We have a lot to talk about with the gameplay, as there are plenty of moving pieces and parts that affect the entertainment value of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Most of what you’re going to read is positive, though not all notes hit on the right scale. Let’s get this gameplay party started.
First-person perspective
I did have so much skepticism going into this game with how the gameplay was going to work with a first-person perspective. During my initial preview of the game, the biggest concern I had was with the first-person perspective, as it looked incredibly uncomfortable for an action game that depended on melee before anything else. I was quite concerned about how this would play out and how MachineGames came to the conclusion that this was the best road to take with it.
All these concerns are put to rest now.
Typically, an Indiana Jones game is either third-person or side-scrolling (Fate of Atlantis, ftw). Seeing Jones in games helped to sell the fact that the game you were playing was Indiana Jones-based. I know it’s weird, but it’s a ‘thing’. Not seeing Indiana Jones outside of the cutscenes, which were gorgeously done in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, was awkward at first, but eventually ended up being the right choice.
There’s something nice about Indiana Jones putting up his dukes and fighting bad guys in first-person. It’s easy to box and hit people, plus easy to block attacks in this perspective. To boot, it’s very easy to throw out the whip and disarm (or pull at) bad guys from this view. It’s just like aiming down the barrel of a gun with the whip, where you point, whip, and then prepare for battle. In addition, when there is gunplay, this works very well, as it should. It has a bit of a Battlefield taste to it, where it feels like a typical FPS. The aiming is solid, the firing is good, and you would swear this was a BF game if you didn’t know better.
Anyway, thanks to dialogue that goes with the first-person perspective, which puts you in the shoes of our hero, as well as sound effects that are simple, firm reminders that you’re playing as Indiana Jones, this perspective is perfect for this action and adventure. It’s a comfortable way to play and it keeps the action squarely from the viewpoint of Indiana Jones. I’m not sure I would be satisfied to play another way now.
Mechanics
Related, the mechanics of the whip, fists, weapons, and whatnot fit perfectly into this perspective. MachineGames nailed the accuracy and ease of use with weapons and fists. The weapons are fantastic, though they are finite in usage (no unlimited ammo, sadly), as is the whip as I mentioned previously. It feels comfortable and they must have borrowed a lot of blueprints from Wolfenstein to bring solid weapon mechanics to this game. It feels a lot like that series.
As for the melee, I thoroughly enjoyed how that worked. The melee is broken down into protecting yourself from attacks, punching your way through enemies, and pushing away an enemy to buy yourself time to refocus and reset your strategy. It’s nothing incredibly special but it is incredibly smooth in how easily you can execute the melee. Anytime your brain doesn’t trip up on the hows of mechanics, you’ve probably got a solid set of mechanics to work with. And to make your efforts with melee even sweeter, the devs attached the infamous punching sounds from the films. Just to make it seem a bit more Indiana Jones.
Beyond weapons and melee, the movement of Jones through the world was more Skyrim-like than Wolfenstein. Climbing up ladders, scaling the outside of buildings, and any type of movement just seemed very familiar. This was the first thing I told my daughter when she watched me play the game, it just feels like Skyrim. It felt smooth, while at the same time flexible when it came to navigating and traversing different environments.
Overall, the mechanics were solid. I think the first-person viewpoint was the way to go and every mechanic used with it made sense.
Menu – Navigation
Now, the only downer of mechanics is the menu navigation. I know, I know, how in the world can I gripe and moan about something so meaningless? It’s not meaningless, it’s very important when it comes to getting material on the fly. Let’s start with the quick menu system.
The quick menu system is driven by the directional keys on the controller. If you press up, you access items that are permanent and non-weapon, food, and/or health-related. This could be a lighter, a torch, or anything that you carry with you that you want to access quickly and often. Not too bad and easily accessible.
If you press left on the directional pad, you get access to a weapon. This could mean a shovel, gun, or anything that could take down baddies. Again, nothing too complicated, unless the weapon breaks, and it will eventually break (and easily break) because real-world wear-tear is imminent when you take down a bevy of baddies. For example, if you whack someone with a sledgehammer, you have about 2-3 uses before it breaks. It delivers a powerful blow, but alas it doesn’t last. Whether you love or hate that option is a personal choice. For me, it was annoying, and I constantly had to access (with the left d-pad) the broken weapon, then select a repair kit to repair it…only to have it break again soon after.
On the right side of the d-pad landscape lies your inventory. You can access different costumes, items to use (such as a repair kit), and items of interest when you need to look at something or deliver something. It’s the biggest side of the bunch and it features a lot of spaces to navigate quickly. Which means you’re not going to navigate them quickly. I would have almost preferred to have that inventory in a separate backend category. As it stands, it was all packed into the right d-pad.
The down d-pad holds all your edibles and bandages. When you get damaged or need more stamina (you have limited amounts of this), then you would press down to quickly access these items. It’s not bad unless you’re panic-pushing buttons or you’re on the run trying to figure out where item X is in your menu system.
Anyway, something about the menu system just never stuck well with me. It felt like it was a bit disorganized and just didn’t feel natural. Remember when I mentioned my brain needing to stop and think and how that was bad? This is one of those moments. Stopping and thinking about the location of an item makes for a not-great time when you’re in a rush or you’re being attacked. I know it’s a manageable element of the mechanics that you can work through but it never became comfortable enough to work seamlessly on the fly. It was a bit more of a mess when compared to other quick menu systems of its type.
In the same vein was the backend map and journal system. The map is pulled up with the left selection button on the Xbox controller. When you press it, Indiana Jones brings up his map in an angular fashion. This means you have to hit an extra button (RB) to pull up the map fully. By not hitting RB, you can move with the map in your hand, which is extremely helpful if you can manage the downward angle the map is lying in. If you hit RB, then you aren’t moving anywhere and the map just becomes a full-screen reference. Having a two-button push to get a map properly pulled up is not efficient.
The backend also features a journal, which is related to the map you’re looking at, and maps change with the quests you choose. There are also books, which are just what they sound like, and Travels which are sketches akin to Henry Jones Sr.’s book from the Last Crusade. These all provide clues that help with the adventure. Each backend option is nice and it helps keep you on track but the map portion does bother me quite a bit. Again, I’m looking for efficiency with the menu navigation and this just feels like it slogs along.
Now, what doesn’t slog along are the enemies.
Stealth is the best medicine
Over the summer, MachineGames discussed how Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was more about stealth than it was about going gung-ho into a situation. Believe it. Pulling out your gun and taking down Nazis, while enjoyable and satisfying, just means you’re more than likely going to die quickly. This doesn’t mean that you can’t whip out a gun and go at it, because I took down about 10 soldiers during a fight, but the chances of dying are high with this method. And the intelligence of the enemies makes it worse.
Don’t misinterpret that because it doesn’t mean that they’re dumb. Nah, quite the contrary. The enemies are smart. They can hear you when you fire a gun. They will blow a whistle to call for backup. They will actively try to find the best method for you to die. They’re dangerous in this game, so playing it stealthily is the safest way to make it through. Even that has issues.
During stealth, enemies can detect you through sound or visuals. They can also identify you through clothing. For example, during the second half of the story, whilst I was in Egypt, I dressed up as one of the workers. If I stuck around a guard too long, the guard would look at me suspiciously and declare that I wasn’t like the other workers. Then trouble began. I’m truly impressed with the amount of effort that went into enemy intelligence with this game. It was far better than expected.
Now, that isn’t to say that they will try and avoid your gunfire, because they don’t, but they will certainly try to overtake you with numbers whenever they can. That’s intelligent and that makes stealth the best option between fighting or sneaking.
The stealth in the game is easy to pull off and the game is very flexible with loosey-goosey stealth methods. You can flub up here and there, as enemies have detection indicator circles that will fill up as they gradually become suspicious, so it’s a bit more fun than I thought a stealth game could be.
Overall, the core mechanics of the game and how Indiana Jones moves and functions within Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is pretty damn solid sans the menu navigation. It is far better than I expected and it makes the game fun as hell more than not.
Story vs Adventure
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle features two layers of gameplay. The first layer is the story, which is certainly linear. You go from point A to point B following breadcrumbs as you unlock the next acts in the narrative design. It’s typical, it’s what makes a game fun, and connects the player with the main characters (not that anyone will need much help doing that). In this regard, especially with the length in some levels (Egypt is huge), you’ll have plenty to keep you occupied and certainly double the time of a normal campaign adventure.
Now, there is a way to keep this going. As you go through the game, in typical Bethesda Softworks fashion, you can take on side quests or go artifact hunting on your own. The space on each map is wide and long. While you won’t get the size of Skyrim or Oblivion with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, you will get more than a linear, restrictive path.
The quests and random artifacts you can acquire come from exploring parts of maps during gameplay. Maps contain locations where you can help someone out, thus, the quests, and/or happen upon random finds. I think I spent far more time exploring maps and trying to uncover secrets than I thought I might with this game. I never imagined it would have a hint of an open world, but it does. You will find yourself exploring bits and pieces of the game and going off the beaten path. This will mean more hours of gameplay and more fun with your efforts.
Puzzling puzzles that are fun
What also can elongate your time with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is how the puzzles work. Some of the puzzles in this game are straight-up time-consuming. For example, there is a level where you have to navigate an inferno with multiple solutions to get to the next piece of the story. This particular level, which I don’t want to dive into too much because I’ll give away things, took about 45 minutes to fully complete. It was an early piece of the game and the puzzle pieces were entertaining to navigate and solve.
Most of the puzzles you run into are difficult enough to challenge you but not frustrating enough to feel like they’re wasting your time. And all of them feel like they’re straight out of an Indiana Jones adventure. I appreciate the amount of time and effort that went into not only creating good puzzles that vary depending on what you’re trying to do but also how they fit into the overall story.
It’s just another cog in this game’s machine.
Presentation
Wrapping the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle review up on a high note, let’s discuss the presentation. Starting with our main character, Troy Baker knocked his portrayal of Indiana Jones out of the ballpark. He sounds like Harrison Ford acts like him, and just embodies this titular character. It’s a fantastic performance and doesn’t miss a beat with all aspects of his performance.
As with Baker, the rest of the cast did a wonderful job of bringing the story to life. All the characters you run into, the side characters you tangle with, and even the minor characters you might constantly beat-up, bring their ‘A’ game to Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. I really enjoyed everyone’s contribution and thought they all watched the movies and understood the type of characters that exist within the Indiana Jones world. Their performances complement the story perfectly.
As for the visuals and sound, the visuals delivered by the Xbox Series X are gorgeous. While they aren’t filled to the brim with ray tracing and heavy Witcher 3-type of graphics, they feature solid character models and gorgeously drawn environments. Everything looks big, alive, and beautiful. The cutscenes are also up there with details and gorgeousness. The motion-captured actors look superb during the story scenes of the game.
The final piece to the presentation puzzle is the sound. The sound is remarkable and John Williams-like. The music is wonderful and it will put you in the Indiana Jones mood from the opening scene. The sound effects from the films have also been brought over, including, and I know I mentioned this earlier but it’s worth saying again, the punching sounds. They will trigger some memories of the movies.
Anyway, the presentation for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is outstanding.
On that sweet note, let’s wrap this review up.
Conclusion
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle from developer MachineGames and publisher Bethesda Softworks is a solid entry into the Indiana Jones game universe. The story is solid, the characters are engaging and intriguing, and the gameplay is well-designed and executed. Not all of it is gold but it’s a great start to another chapter in the Indiana Jones game universe.
