Upcoming action-adventure game Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is shaping up to be a wonderful interpretation of the blockbuster film franchise. In just a few hours of hands-on with an early build, I enjoyed getting to grips with the titular archaeologist's robust toolset and experiencing a surprisingly rich combat system that saw fascists whipped, whacked, and walloped in all manner of amusing ways.
Set right after the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle impressed me from the get-go with its meticulous recreation of the world of the films. Things kick off in the stuffy halls of Marshall College, the fictionalized university where Jones serves as a professor. Its façade looks almost indistinguishable from the small handful of shots where it appeared in the films, while its interior is absolutely brimming with charming little details that help bring it to life.
Wandering through the archaeology department, I was stopping practically every few feet to examine a new set of relics, grab some strewn collectible newspapers, or even just play with the occasional interesting-looking lamp.
Hands-on
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle seems almost tailor-made for those who love to pore over every detail as it is, in many respects, an extremely tactile game. Almost everything that you encounter can be picked up and held in Indy’s hands. Even opening a locked door is an extremely physical process that has you grabbing the required key from your satchel, slotting it into the keyhole, and then manually rotating it with a flick of the thumbstick.
It feels incredibly fitting given Indy’s role as an archaeologist, something that's often quite neglected by video game interpretations of the character. In a brief interview after my session, creative director Axel Torvenius was keen to expand on how these kinds of interactions will shape Indy’s place in the world. “We always set out to do something that would feel grounded. That is important because it feeds into the core aspect of Indiana Jones being a very human character,” he explained.
“If things are happening around you in the environment they should affect you, but also you interacting with the environment will affect the environment. There’s a give and take there, and when all of that is combined, you will have the sensation that you are fully immersed.”
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle features an optional cinematic display mode that sandwiches the screen in two black bars. I would highly recommend turning it on for a much more movie-like experience.
Picking up everything that you find also presents the perfect opportunity to appreciate the high-fidelity visuals, which are simply stunning across the board. The world of the 1930s has been meticulously recreated, a process that Torvenius explains required “a lot of research. A lot, a lot of research,” using a wide range of photographs and illustrations from the period. Lighting is also top-notch, with a bright and inviting atmosphere that’s a great match for a series associated with larger-than-life adventure.
Just bear in mind that the build I played was running on a very high-spec PC. We'll still have to wait and see whether these impressive graphics fully translate into the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S versions.
Whip smart
Of course, Indiana Jones is known for a lot more than just his archeology. He’s also a ferocious fighter so first-person combat plays an important part in the game. I was thrilled to discover that everything lives up to the high standard that you would expect from developer MachineGames, though it’s definitely a change of pace compared to its Wolfenstein titles.
Indy is armed with his trademark revolver, though melee is the clear focus. There’s plenty of ammunition lying around if you want to run and gun it, but bullets are surprisingly lethal and every shot you fire runs the risk of nearby guards shooting back. The few times I used my gun, things very rapidly got out of control. Thankfully, fighting with your fists is incredibly satisfying. Dodging, blocking, and charging up powerful strikes feels very responsive and, while the animations sometimes looked a little jagged, it was consistently a blast.
The whip is also a powerful tool, disarming guards and yanking them off ledges with a quick crack. I got into a fantastic rhythm when I discovered that enemy guns can not only be fired but quickly flipped in your hands and used as quieter melee weapons. Whipping a guard off his feet only to pick up his rifle and using it to pummel his friend is delightfully slick. You can also throw pretty much anything that you can get your hands on, leading to some fantastic improvised brawls with bottles, wrenches, fruits, and much more tossed in desperation.
You wouldn’t know it, but perfecting melee combat was one of the biggest challenges for the developer. “In our muscle memory, and basically the DNA within the studio, is to make this kind of run and gun type of game with a lot of heavy guns and gibbing and all of that,” explains Torvenius. “It took a while to rewire that muscle memory to something else, something new.”
Sightseeing
As with any good Indiana Jones story, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is going to be a truly globetrotting adventure. I explored Marshall College, a small village near the Vatican City, and a much larger open area around the pyramids of Giza in Egypt - but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The game’s plot sees Indy thwarting the Nazis as they attempt to exploit the secrets of the Great Circle, a line that connects spiritual sites all across the world. “This comes, of course, from [executive producer] Todd Howard, who had this idea of a game that he wanted to make for many, many years,” Torvenius says.
“From that core synopsis of the great circle with all those locations, we flesh out which ones to pick and expand upon. Then it comes to finding a balance between different biomes,” he continues. “The game, I think, would have been [...] less exciting if we were in Giza for the entirety of it. You want to have that pacing. You want to see the jungle. We have the Himalayas, and we have the desert, and Vatican City.”
Each of these areas will present its own challenges and puzzles for Indy to solve, but there’s still lots of flexibility for those who would rather focus solely on the action.
“We didn’t want the puzzles to become a blocker. If you're not into solving complicated puzzles, you can dial down the difficulty level on the puzzle setting,” Torvenius explains. For those who only need a little nudge, the in-game camera can be used to take pictures of puzzles. These then appear in your in-game journal, with handy annotations, and can even prompt the odd bit of helpful dialogue from Indy himself.
In giving you the flexibility to focus on the parts of Indiana Jones that excite you the most, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle could very well become the ultimate form of wish fulfillment. I came away eager to dig deep into everything that it has to offer, plus punch plenty more Nazis, when it launches for Xbox and PC on December 6. A PlayStation 5 version is then set to follow in 2025.
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