4/5 ★ – UpwardBoss's review of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

When George Lucas and Steven Spielberg began development of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Lucas had one specific goal in mind: to bring back the sense of pulpy adventure from classic 1930s serial films. The film's poster contained the tagline "The Return of the Great Adventure". The entire purpose of Indiana Jones, as a franchise, is adventure. Raiders of the Lost Ark is, of course, an absolute masterpiece, one that inspired countless media over the ensuing 40 years (including Tomb Raider and Uncharted in the video game space, and this will be far from the last time I bring these two examples up). It wasn't the most original film ever (and Spielberg himself admitted to taking heavy inspiration from The Adventures of Tintin, an inspiration that would come full circle when he directed the Tintin film 30 years later), but it nailed exactly what it set out to do, which was to be... an adventure. This is extremely pertinent to this review. Because I'm here to tell you today that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has a lot of problems, from technical issues to level design to gameplay mechanics. But... the Great Circle absolutely *nails* the sense of adventure that characterized the original Indiana Jones trilogy, and, frankly, does so far, far better than the two most recent films. Let's start with the narrative itself as that is, quite frankly, the main reason I am recommending Indiana Jones and the Great Circle to you today. Since Last Crusade, Indiana Jones has struggled with where to take its narrative. Last Crusade ended on a perfect note, and the two successor films never really justified their own existence. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was, frankly, a disaster, with its ridiculous interdimensional alien plot and, more egregiously, Shia LaBeouf, and Dial of Destiny was just depressing with its Logan approach of "let's take this character everyone loves and make him old and depressed" entirely unsuited to Indiana Jones. Great Circle, fortunately, is much more of a "traditional" Indiana Jones adventure, set between Raiders and Last Crusade, and featuring Indy, in his prime, chasing historical artifacts while punching Nazis, which is exactly what Indiana Jones should be. Tonally, Great Circle is absolutely spot on. From the plot to the voice acting to the visual design to the music, every part of this game *feels* like Indiana Jones, and you can tell MachineGames have a lot of love for this source material. The narrative is exactly what it should be, a globetrotting chase for ancient artifacts. It's not a particularly *surprising* narrative, but it does have its fair share of heartfelt moments, and the characterization of both Indy and his sidekick, Gina, is spot on. Special shoutout here goes to Troy Baker as Indiana Jones, who delivers such a phenomenal impersonation of both Harrison Ford's voice and his mannerisms that for about 95% of the time, you cannot tell the difference. The real standout here though is the main Nazi villain, Emmerich Voss, portrayed by Marios Gavrilis. Voss is exactly what you expect from an Indiana Jones villain, irredeemably evil and wholly loyal to Hitler, but also both respectful and jealous of Indy as a leader in his field. Gavrilis' performance is absolutely superb, perfectly balancing those two sides of Voss, and doing so in multiple languages. Like I said before, the actual plot is fairly familiar, but just like with Raiders, it captures the sense of adventure so perfectly that it doesn't really matter. Great Circle is a thrill ride, and a damn good one at that. Structurally, Great Circle is... not what you'd expect. I think most of us were thinking this would be very similar to Uncharted and Tomb Raider, just in first-person. It is not. There are linear, more action-oriented levels in between, but most of the game you'll spend in three open-world zones, completing both main and side quests. This is... a bold move, and one that I don't think entirely pays off. But before we go into that, I want to mention one specific linear segment. I won't go in depth on any of the others due to spoilers, but the game opens with a shot-for-shot remake of the opening segment of Raiders of the Lost Ark. This has been a bit controversial, with some that think it's a nice, nostalgic way to open the game, and others that think the game's poor facial animations and first-person perspective make it feel inferior to the original. I, unfortunately, fall into the latter camp. It's not a bad idea in theory to open the game with a throwback to the most iconic moment in the entire franchise, but... that is a hell of a moment to live up to. If you are to do it, you'd damn well better do it well, or it'll feel like a pale imitation of something better, and unfortunately that's what I think it is. It doesn't help that the sequence is *painfully* linear, stopping from time to time to have you interact with an object, but beyond that, there is no interactivity or agency beyond one brief puzzle late in the sequence. Perhaps most critically, however, it's an intro that fails to establish a unique identity for the game (something that Great Circle does establish later). It's just... a baffling way to open the game, and while the *idea* isn't too bad, the execution certainly is. Once you complete this level (and two more linear levels), you're dropped into the first open-world segment of the game, the Vatican. This is probably the highlight of the entire game. The Vatican isn't particularly large, but it's dense, labyrinthine, and depicted with meticulous detail. In press previews, I heard a few comparisons to HITMAN, of all things, which obviously surprised me immensely, but... while the Vatican doesn't provide the level of freedom in how you *complete* your objective that HITMAN does, it does provide that level of freedom in how you get there. It's a very well-designed open-world space, and it's a space that is genuinely interesting to traverse. The second open-world level is Gizeh, Egypt, and this is a tremendous step backward. While the Vatican was a dense, interconnected place that felt real, Gizeh is just a few camps and villages spread out. It feels like a Ubisoft world, and not even the more recent ones that have at least *tried* to advance that formula. This stretch was the weakest part of the entire game. The last open-world level is Sukhothai, in what is now Thailand. This level is... a big improvement on Gizeh, simply because its waterways make it slightly more interesting to traverse, but it's still a big step down from the Vatican, with the same "generic villages and camps spread around" layout that makes it feel very much like a video game level (and a rather uninteresting one at that), rather than a real place. If you have heard those HITMAN comparisons in previews, be aware that it *is* technically true for the Vatican, but very much *only* the Vatican. This is not a HITMAN game, and it will not give you the level of replayability that those games have. As such, I think the comparison is more than a bit unhelpful. In terms of what you're actually doing in these open-world levels, beyond advancing the main quest, there are three types of side content, Fieldwork, Discoveries, and Mysteries. The fieldwork quests are actually excellent, as they feel like an integral part of the game, at times directly advancing the main plot. Definitely do these. Mysteries are alright, not too big in scope but some of the puzzles are fun. Discoveries, however, are your typical open-world collectathon quests like "collect 15 medicine bottles" or "collect 5 lost artifacts". I am so, so sick of open-worlds being filled with this generic, tedious content that only exists to pad the length of the game. The collectibles are also inherently tied to progression, as Indy only becomes more powerful through collecting "adventure books", which are scattered throughout the world. So if you don't do this content, you are actively making the rest of the game harder for yourself. Honestly, if you removed all of the collectibles from the game, you'd immediately have a more consistently compelling experience, because throughout my 27-hour playthrough, completing the "Discoveries" was by far the most tedious aspect of the entire game. So how does all of this actually play? Again, differently to how you'd expect. Indiana Jones is *not* an action game, at least not primarily. The game is, at its core, a stealth game, where Indy is actively trying to avoid head-on combat as much as he can. Unfortunately... these stealth mechanics are awful. It's very simple, line-of-sight based stealth, with some of the dumbest AI I've ever seen, with Indy having very few tools at his disposal to provide player agency. You can pick up objects and bash enemies over the head with them, you can throw those objects to distract them... and that's about it. There is *supposedly* an ability to knock them out from a distance with the whip, but I tried it and it did not work. I assume that's a bug (or maybe it's situational? Who knows). Dare I say it, this stealth is as bad as Star Wars Outlaws. There is a disguise system in the open-world sections (again, another inspiration from HITMAN) but these feel more like an option to skip stealth rather than give you different opportunities *for* stealth. Now, unlike Outlaws, stealth is not instant-fail, and when you get spotted, it's time to fight. Combat in Great Circle is, again, not what you'd expect. Indy has a gun, but ammo is extremely limited and Indy cannot take many shots before dying. Despite being in first-person, Great Circle is definitely NOT a shooter and if you try to play it like that, you're gonna have a bad time. It also completely breaks the few boss fights in the game, as the gun both does way more damage than your fists do, but bosses (and some normal enemies, for that matter) can tank multiple headshots making the fights downright comical (and not in a good way). No, you'll be fighting most enemies head-on with melee combat. And... unfortunately yet again, the melee combat is actively bad. You can punch with either fist (with either the left or right trigger) or attack them with an object. The problem is that the mechanics are extremely basic (you essentially attack with the right trigger and nothing else when you have an object in your hand, or with both triggers without one), and it's laughably easy. Outside of some rather annoying boxing rings (one of the discoveries located throughout the world), combat isn't typically much of a challenge, as enemies will very rarely use guns unless you do. The mechanics are also... oddly clunky, particularly the parry mechanic, which feels hit-and-miss as to whether it actually works half the time. Beyond melee combat, there are some puzzles, most of which are actually quite fun, although the main story can sometimes throw too many of them at you in a row, which really hurts the pacing. There are also some light platforming elements, but I'd go as far as to say that these sections are near-impossible to fail, as the game always gives you ample time to complete these sections, and the game seems to lock on to platforms a bit too generously. There has been much discussion about the decision to make Great Circle primarily first-person, a choice that felt odd for an IP with such a recognizable star, but I was open to the idea given MachineGames' pedigree making first-person games where you kill Nazis, in addition to avoiding comparisons to Tomb Raider and Uncharted (which, let's face it, a battle with Crystal Dynamics or Naughty Dog in their prime is not one you are likely to win). Having now played it though... I do not see why this needed to be first-person. MachineGames actively avoids playing to their previous strengths making first-person shooters, as the game deliberately discourages you from using guns, and the game is so remarkably different to Wolfenstein in its design that there really... is no advantage to this being first-person. It's already so different from what MachineGames have made in the past that I honestly don't know why they made this decision. I don't think it's a much *worse* game for being in first-person, but I also don't think it's a better one for it. I now suspect that the main reason this game is first-person is the id Tech engine, which has primarily been used for first-person games. Maybe it would have been too difficult to use that engine in third-person? Who knows. Lastly, we come to the technical state of this game. Visually, the environments are absolutely gorgeous, both from a technical perspective and from a visual design one. These locations have been stunningly well-realized. The frame rate is also a very solid 60 FPS on Xbox Series X during gameplay, with frame drops being exceedingly rare. This is a major step forward for Microsoft, who had a pretty bad run of exclusives launching at 30 FPS over the past two years. Unfortunately, the facial animations are... not good at all. In fairness, Indiana Jones' likeness being of a real person was always going to cause an uncanny valley effect, but even with other characters, the facial animations are just... off. It really brings down the entire package, as the environments being so well done make any potential shortcomings much more noticeable. This is also a AAA video game released in 2024, which means it's broken to all hell. I had two crashes, multiple game-breaking bugs relating to Gina's AI (requiring me to roll back a save to fix it both times, and backup saves aren't particularly frequent either so I lost about 20-30 minutes worth of progress each time), a really annoying sound bug where sound effects would be distorted, and the frame rate in cutscenes would often drop at random, which seems to be a bug rather than a performance problem, as it only happens in cutscenes. It's the rare instance of a video game that looks better in gameplay than it does in cutscenes, which is... not supposed to happen. So... as I said at the beginning of this review, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has a *lot* of problems. This has been a very critical review in a lot of ways, but it's important to remember that video games (or any piece of art for that matter) are not judged based on their individual components. They're judged as a whole. And... I really think this is a lot more than the sum of its parts. There are some aspects of this game that are frustratingly disappointing, but Great Circle nails one incredibly important thing. Adventure. I suspect that if you're not a particularly big fan of the classic Indy movies, you're not going to get much out of this, but I am, and as such, I really had a great time with this. This is by far the best Indiana Jones installment released this century, but most importantly, this is the most any Indiana Jones installment has felt like the original films since Last Crusade all the way back in 1989. As such, if you are a fan of Indiana Jones, I strongly recommend Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. 8/10.