Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Wants to Give Fans What the New Movies Couldn’t
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle argues that the future of this franchise is video games.
The Indiana Jones films have influenced and inspired video games for decades, namely the Tomb Raider and Uncharted series, which have become successful franchises in their own right. Oddly, there hasn’t really been a licensed Indiana Jones game that’s made a lasting impact, but Indiana Jones and the Great Circle could be the first game to capture the magic of the movies in the right way.
The preview footage of the game shown at the Xbox showcase in June highlighted that the game is very much aiming to stand alongside the films in scale and tone, with a dialogue-driven scene in which Indiana and his companion, Italian journalist Gina, get into a dicey standoff with the game’s antagonist, German archaeologist Emmerich Voss, and his henchmen as they vie for control over a mysterious relic. Message received: The Great Circle looks, sounds, and feels uncannily like an Indiana Jones movie. But developer MachineGames and publisher Bethesda have grander aspirations than to release a surface-level homage. They chose to dig deeper.
In a virtual preview event prior to the game’s showcase at Gamescom 2024, Game Director Jerk Gustafsson and Creative Director Axel Torvenius emphasized “bringing story and character moments together to create an experience that feels like a true Indiana Jones adventure,” but were just as proud to highlight the things Indiana Jones and the Great Circle offers that the films do not, delving into how their approach to gameplay gives players the opportunity to see the world through Indy’s eyes.
One would think a modern Indiana Jones game would look strikingly similar to the aforementioned franchises it inspired—a third-person, platforming, globe-trotting adventure with non-stop action. But developer MachineGames and publisher Bethesda are taking an unexpected approach to the franchise. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is largely played in first-person, with a third-person camera only being used in contextually, for platforming sections and the like. There’s less of a focus on the guns-blazing style of action seen in some of the Wolfenstein games MachineGames is known for. Instead, the game balances combat with an oft overlooked fixture of Indiana Jones films: Indy’s obsession with archaeology and artifacts.
With this in mind, the decision to go with first-person gameplay starts to make a lot of sense. The game sees players scour environments for clues, examine artifacts, and solve puzzles that require close examination. It’s far from an archaeology sim, but the gameplay does tap into what’s at the heart of the study: curiosity.
While the game does have a more traditional combat element, what seems to be its most novel pillar of gameplay is its emphasis on exploration. Some sections of the game are quite linear, but they’re connected by more open areas where exploration and investigation become the focus. Players are encouraged to go off the beaten path in these sections, taking on side missions, uncovering secrets, and unraveling the mysteries by scouring the game’s rich, detailed environments.
“[Golden Circle] is, by far, the biggest game MachineGames has made,” Gustafsson says. He also adds that the game’s side missions aren’t merely fluff content. Should players choose to engage in them, it will add significantly to their play time. Each side mission is “a matter of hours, not minutes,” he says.
Indiana’s camera is a key tool that players use to learn about the lost civilizations that built the hidden ruins throughout the game. Taking pictures deepens Indiana’s knowledge and earns Adventure Points, which players can spend to improve Indiana’s abilities and earn new ones. Indiana’s journal is another vital gameplay component–if examined closely, his notes can help reveal the way forward when players get stuck. Perceptive, sharp-eyed players will definitely have a leg up.
The biggest message from the preview event was that MachineGames designed the gameplay to favor wit and creativity over straightforward, aggressive gameplay (though running and gunning is still supported). As for the game’s combat, Gustafsson described a three-phase approach that he likes to employ. The first phase is stealth: It’s possible for players to get through most of the enemy encounters without using Indy’s revolver and instead using stealth, utilizing found objects and Indy’s whip to manipulate the environment to incapacitate and circumvent enemies. If Indy is caught, Gustafsson then engages the game’s hand-to-hand combat system, which favors parrying and precise timing over button mashing. And if none of that works, it’s then time to let the bullets fly.
The footage shown at the preview event also showcased Indy’s ability to use disguises to enter restricted areas. In one scene, he dons a priest’s garb to gather information at the Vatican, and in another, he disguises himself as a German soldier to collect a key that allows he and Gina to delve deeper into the crypts beneath the Great Sphynx at Giza. The game’s stealth mechanics don’t look as involved as, say, what you’d find in the Hitman games, but the quality voice acting and slick presentation make them appear just as engaging as the action-driven sections of the game. There’s a moment where a German officer is barking at Indy to fetch him a bottle of booze–it’s up to the player to obey the command or not, and you can’t help but wonder if Indy would abide such verbal abuse or do something about it…
The biggest question mark I came away with after watching the preview footage revolved around the game’s traversal mechanics. Indy can climb walls and sidle along ledges, and he can use his whip to swing across gaps and get to higher ground. The camera switches to third-person in these moments, and from the footage the transitions look like they may be a little jarring. I say “may” because there’s every possibility that when I get my hands on the game traversal will feel smooth as silk and the perspective switches could feel quite seamless. From what I saw, though, the first-person stuff looked super, super smooth and fast, while the third-person moments seemed a little rigid, mostly due to the animation not looking natural and fluid.
Aside from this relatively minor quibble, though, I have nothing but praise for the game’s visuals. This thing looks stunning, with the main highlights being the evocative lighting, the hyper-detailed environments, and the spot-on rendering of Harrison Ford’s likeness. What’s interesting about a game like this is that, even if the graphics look incredible and high-end, if MachineGames don’t capture the iconic actor pretty much perfectly, it would risk making the game feel cheap. There is no Indiana Jones without Ford, and they’ve definitely done him justice here. The game model looks exactly like him, down to the mischievous glint in his eye, and Troy Baker’s voice sounds so freakishly identical to Ford’s that Torvenius thought his test audio was an old recording of Ford himself.
The writing team seems to have nailed Indiana’s tone as well. When a German soldier drops an ancient vase and Indy scolds, “You have any idea how old that was,” it sounds like it was taken straight from the movies (in a good way). The story is set shortly after Raiders of the Lost Ark, and that film was the primary influence for the game’s storytelling and tone. Gina is a new face but seems to fit nicely into the long line of characters from the franchise. She and Indy seem to get on one another’s nerves a bit, which should make for an entertaining dynamic. She mentions in the footage that her reason for joining Indiana on his journey is to find her sister, which will hopefully lead to some interesting twists in the story that compromise his mission to demystify the titular Golden Circle.
What is the Golden Circle, anyway? Well, it’s a collection of ancient sites across the globe that form a circle when connected on a map. It’s a simple idea that gives the game a good excuse to see Indy fly around the world and visit a variety of locations, and from the looks of the footage there will be a ton of different locales to explore. The game’s executive producer, Bethesda’s Todd Howard, actually came up with the concept of the Golden Circle, and with him being involved with the development of the game, it’s no wonder why it looks to be a more robust gaming experience than one might expect from a licensed movie adaptation.
Many of the members at MachineGames also worked on The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, the 2004 game that quietly set the standard for great licensed games. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s gameplay and presentation feel strikingly similar to that title, which is a really, really good thing. If you’re into that game and the studio’s Wolfenstein series, you should be in for a treat. “[Golden Circle] is, by far, the biggest game MachineGames has made,” Gustafsson says. He also adds that the game’s side missions aren’t merely fluff content. Should players choose to engage in them, it will add significantly to their play time. Each side mission is “a matter of hours, not minutes,” he says.
Indiana Jones and the Golden Circle looks promising, particularly for fans of the films. I can’t say enough about how well MachineGames captured the look and feel of the films. The set pieces look epic (a moment where Indy leaps from the wings of one fighter plane to another mid-flight looks bonkers), and the narrative-driven scenes seem pitch-perfect. Gameplay-wise, there looks to be a lot of variety and balance to the experience, and hopefully all of the mechanics come together in a way that draws you into the world and into the psyche of the legendary adventurer himself.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will be released on December 9 for Xbox Series X/S and Windows PC and sometime during Spring 2025 for the PlayStation 5.
Written by
Bernard Boo is a writer and geek enthusiast living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Movies, TV, video games, and comics are constantly rattling around in his brain,…