Cinematic game makes good first impression – Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Review
| Title | Indiana Jones and the Great Circle | |
| Platform | Windows, Xbox Series X/S | |
| Developer | Machine games | |
| Publisher | Xbox | |
| Release date | 2024 |
It’s a bit harsh: while Indiana Jones was of course the inspiration behind well-known game franchises such as Tomb Raider and Uncharted, it is precisely those games that now serve as a benchmark for the genre that actually belongs to Dr. Jones. After all, anyone who sees images of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle can hardly avoid comparisons with the aforementioned action adventures. Not at all bad, but funny how that perspective has been reversed. Incidentally, that is also because we have never had a really good Indy game. It has also been more than a decade since a game based on the Indiana Jones franchise was released. So it was time again for the iconic adventurer with fedora and whip to find his way to the PC and consoles. Or well, consoles: specifically the Xbox, because after the acquisition of Bethesda by Microsoft, the PlayStation 5 was removed from the list of platforms.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is, of course, an action-adventure in which exploring ancient temples and caves plays an important role. That certainly maintains the comparison with Tomb Raider and Uncharted, but there is an important difference. We are talking about a game that takes place entirely in the first person. That takes some getting used to, because this type of game usually uses a third-person view. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle does not. There are several reasons for this. First of all, development studio Machinegames has a lot of experience with first-person games. For example, the studio was responsible for various Wolfenstein games and many employees have worked on The Darkness in the past, for example, which is also a first-person game. However, that is not the only reason. The makers believe that the first-person perspective draws the game more into the world. Puzzles can also be viewed up close, which offers more options in that regard.
Great explanation, but still… I’m always a bit wary of action-packed games that you play from a first-person perspective. That’s because the action often feels a bit funny, clumsy, and just not quite right. I don’t expect any issues with the puzzles and certainly the shooting; it’s perfect for that. But the images that Machinegames showed during Summer Game Fest, of an Indiana Jones fighting various opponents, I found worrying. Not because they’re not beautiful, they certainly are, but because that type of fighting system rarely feels really good in games.
We’ll put this point on hold for now, because it’s typically something you can only say something sensible about once you’ve played the game. I haven’t yet, because in the run-up to gamescom, Tweakers did get to see a new, extensive gameplay demonstration, but I still couldn’t play it myself. Fortunately, this new presentation already revealed the necessary details about the adventure game, which is due to be released later this year for Xbox and Steam.
Beautiful characters
In Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Indy, assisted by an investigative journalist named Gina, gets on the trail of the mystery of the Great Circle. Of course, we don’t know the meaning of that circle yet, but it seems clear that it is a series of artifacts that are spread out over the world in such a way that they form a circle around the globe. What we also know is that Indiana Jones is not the only one hunting the secrets behind this circle. The game is set in 1937, so in a broader sense you will encounter the Axis powers Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan as your main enemies, but the character named Emmerich Voss seems to be the main antagonist in advance. He is brought to life by the German actor Marios Gavrilis and the first images of his performance are promising.
A young Harrison Ford
Now that we’re talking about characters and actors: Indiana Jones himself, thank God, looks like the young Harrison Ford we know from the original film trilogy. He has to, Indy can’t be Indy without his likeness. That’s where Ford’s involvement ends because Jones’ voice is provided by the well-known and very experienced voice actor Troy Baker, who comes pretty close to how Indiana Jones sounds in the films. Baker made a podcast together with voice actor Nolan North until a few years ago, who is best known as the voice of Nathan Drake. Exactly, the main character from Uncharted and thus in a way also a bit of a descendant of Indiana Jones.
With the characters we have seen so far, it seems to be going well and that is a good thing, because they have to carry the game to a certain extent. Although you see the game mainly through the eyes of Indy, the cinematic approach that you recognize from the films is retained. The story and the characters that ‘play’ that story are therefore of great importance. Fortunately, what we have seen so far in that respect is quite convincing.
Moderate stream
Unfortunately, this does not apply to all parts of the game. An important disclaimer here is that Machinegames did an online presentation, in a stream that could be viewed in a maximum of 1080p. That does not help, but even in that resolution you can see the difference between beautiful, well-maintained environments and environments that seem a bit simple. The good news is that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has both types of environments on board. We saw beautiful environments with lots of greenery, which had then overgrown an old temple. Elsewhere in the temple we saw Indy doing a puzzle and the textures of the walls on which elements of the puzzle could be seen sometimes looked ugly and coarse. In other places the game shows a fairly high level of detail. Desks and market stalls are full, and the various temples and caves also show quite a lot of detail. However, the game does not radiate being brand new anywhere. We do not see the step forward on an audiovisual level that we have occasionally seen in the past year, certainly with the release of the first real Unreal Engine 5 games.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is known to use Id Tech, but we haven’t been able to get any details from Bethesda or Machinegames yet. So we’ll have to find out what new Id Tech features, if any, the game uses later. What we do know is that the music in the game was composed by Gordy Haab, who also composed the soundtrack for Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, as well as the soundtracks for a whole bunch of Star Wars games, including Star Wars Battlefront and Battlefront II and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Haab’s music is of course based on the classic, recognizable works of John Williams. Of course, an Indiana Jones game can’t be an Indiana Jones game without the iconic main theme.
Tracking, climbing and fighting
So, there is no good way to judge the game’s appearance. I am certainly quite critical of the environments, but again: judging this based on an online presentation with images that may have been compressed is not possible. So we wait and hope that the final game will still surprise us in that area.
From the Himalayas to the Vatican
What we can say a lot more about is the gameplay. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle looks, apart from my reservations about the fighting in first person, very entertaining. That starts with the approach the makers have chosen to entice players to actively search for secrets and details about the mysteries they encounter along the way. The game takes place in all kinds of recognizable locations. We already mentioned old temples and caves, that is inevitable with Indy, but players also end up in the Himalayas and the Vatican. In the images we see Jones wandering around in or under the Castel Sant’Angelo. I personally love Rome and am therefore very curious to see what secrets the eternal city will reveal to Indiana Jones.
Searching for secrets is not something you do for nothing, because Jones keeps track of everything in his journal. By gathering information there, players can find clues that help their quest and the story. During the journey, Indiana can get more information about his surroundings by taking photos of special buildings or places. Taking photos is also useful if you think you see information that can be used later in puzzles. It sounds like the game will give players a fair amount of freedom in this; at least it seems like you can choose that freedom. In these types of games, we usually see that players are taken by the hand and hardly any real thinking is required to solve puzzles. If the players are not taken by the hand, there is a risk of more frustration, but I think this game would benefit from letting players figure out a lot for themselves.
Puzzling and exploring are a part of the gameplay that often goes hand in hand with platforming elements. Indiana Jones likes to venture off the beaten track and the alternative paths are not always well maintained or even passable. We see Indy climbing and scrambling a lot in the images, where he frequently uses his whip to, for example, swing over gaps that he would not be able to jump over. Indy can sometimes even adjust the environment to create such swinging possibilities, for example by throwing a spear into the wall and then swinging it with his whip.
Whip
The whip also plays a role in the fighting. That fighting promises to be very diverse, because of course we already saw the fists, we also know that Indy carries a revolver and that he can deliver some good blows with his whip. In addition, he can pick up all kinds of objects from the environment and use them as weapons. Ingenuity is rewarded and not only in the fighting. The makers emphasize that gamers should keep thinking. A room where you can’t go any further, but where there is hay on the floor, might become more interesting if you light that hay by first lighting a torch with your lighter and then holding the torch near the hay. This is a simple example, but I like that kind of system. It ensures that creativity is rewarded and I think that is a nice principle in games. Of course, this stands or falls with how much freedom you really have, but I appreciate the attempt.
Back to the fighting, or rather: before the fighting. Indiana Jones may be a pretty good fighter, but he doesn’t always have to resort to violence. Stealth also plays a role in the game. For example, we see Indy throwing objects to lure enemies away with sound, so he can approach them from behind and take them out. Oh well, the old “hey, there’s a sound” trick: it’s a bit stale, but if it fits anywhere, it’s in a classic franchise like Indiana Jones.
While Indy is doing all that, we sometimes see the text ‘+5 Adventure Points’ appear on the screen. This is a central part of the game. Adventure Points are earned as a player with all kinds of things, but they are mainly used as a reward for discovering new areas, clues, secrets and so on. These points are not there for nothing, because you can spend them on Adventure Books, which provide Indiana Jones with new skills. I have not yet seen any concrete examples of what possibilities this adds to your arsenal. In any case, it also offers a reason in terms of gameplay content to do a lot of exploring and not just ‘because it’s fun’. After all, it also makes you stronger.
Variation
Finally, what is also evident from the images we have seen so far is that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle offers a lot of variety. This starts with the environments, where you end up in Rome and the Himalayas, but also in and around the Sphinx in Egypt, for example. The gameplay offers sufficient variety, with different specific types of gameplay, which are also interrupted by cinematic scenes. Of course, it remains an Indiana Jones game, so over the top action scenes are part of it.
Conclusion
Do you know what the real magic of this game is? The face of Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones looks bravely ahead, while one corner of his mouth turns up in a cautious grin. That one moment evokes a huge ‘Oh yes, Indiana Jones!’ sentiment in me, which will probably quickly push all the aforementioned negative points into the background. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle doesn’t have a thing to prove. Gameplay features are nice, but they’re only really worth something if we’ve been able to try them ourselves, and I’m not convinced about the graphics either.
If you’re thinking ‘that’s all nice, but I really want to see it for myself’, I have good news for you. The entire presentation of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle can be seen at gamescom, in the theater on the Xbox Booth. Here you can see with your own eyes what the adventure of Dr. Jones will look like later this year. I might even hop along, if only to see what the game looks like on a big screen there instead of on a 1080p stream.