Our review of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, developed by MachineGames. Available now for PS5 (reviewed), Xbox X/S, and Windows.
WHAT IS IT?
The game of the movie of the game of the movie of the game.
IS IT GOOD?
It looks, sounds, and plays like a forgotten Indy movie.
WHO SHOULD PLAY IT?
Nathan Fillion, Angelina Jolie, Alicia Vikander, Tom Holland.
MAKING IT UP AS I GO
Gamers of a certain vintage will recall a time when the best, most brain-tingly entertaining adventure games were all produced by LucasArts. (Yes, the Star Wars company).
Most of those games – your Days of the Tentacle, your Grim Fandangos – were uproariously funny, combining absurd humour with defiantly off-kilter logic to great effect. Others, of a more serious bent, earned laurels for their brilliant writing and compelling, immersive narratives.
Top of that list, then and now, is Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (1992), a game which many still consider one of the great adventure titles, if not one of the best games of all time. A globe-hopping adventure in classic Indy style, Fate of Atlantis was set just year after the events of Indy’s then-most recent film outing, The Last Crusade (1989), and was widely praised for its twisty story and delightful point-and-click puzzle gameplay.
It’s been a long time since Fate of Atlantis, with very little in the way of great Indy gaming to show for it. In the interim, the Indiana Jones style has, of course, been lovingly co-opted by other series, notably Tomb Raider and Uncharted, which, in turn, begat their own films. But what worked so well in one medium – letting players play around in the digital shoes of an Indiana Jones knock-off – proved ill-suited for the big-screen, with neither the live-action Lara Croft nor live-action Nathan Drake coming close to replicating the Indy charm.
It’s 2025, and things have now come full circle, or should we say great circle, with the originator finally getting his own, meaty, immersive video game, built to resemble an Indy movie that might have come out during the series’ heyday. (In fact, Great Circle’s 1937 setting situates it between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade.)
Intriguingly, however, this outing isn’t quite a Drake or Croft clone. Not really. That’s thanks partly to an unexpected first-person perspective, and partly to an impressive dedication to filmic realism, which calls to mind, of all things, Alien: Isolation.
SNAKES, WHY DOES IT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE SNAKES
The last time we saw Indiana Jones, he was bouncing all over the world with surrogate daughter figure F̶l̶e̶a̶b̶a̶g̶ Helena Shaw, in pursuit of an arcane ancient object coveted, once again, by the Nazis. This being the 1960s (or, 2023), the hero of the most recent Indiana Jones film was an older, slower Professor Jones – still capable of throwing a punch or cracking a whip, but relying on Helena and allies for the more death-defying challenges (and stunt work).
James Mangold’s Dial of Destiny was an enjoyable, if flawed, work – too overlong by half, but sufficiently attuned to the Spielbergian magic to offer more classic-style Indy adventures, without just replaying the hits. With Harrison Ford vocal in his desire to retire the character, Dial of Destiny proved to be an above-average send-off to a series whose previous entry is best remembered for Shia LaBeouf’s cartoon monkeys and a nuclear-proof refrigerator.
The Indiana Jones machine, however, must go on, and in the endless churn that is our contemporary pop culture landscape, it was perhaps inevitable that the post-Destiny world would welcome a video game spinoff, replete with a Discount Harrison Ford in the form of motion- and voice-actor Troy Baker (Joel in The Last of Us, and Sam Drake in, naturally, the Indiana-like Uncharted series).
That this game is so damn good, however, will likely catch a lot of people off guard.
ALWAYS KNEW SOMEDAY YOU’D COME WALKING BACK THROUGH MY DOOR
The opening moments of Great Circle are like slipping into a warm bath, the game opening (wisely or unwisely, depending on your view) with a nearly shot-for-shot recreation of the opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark, rolling boulder and all. For what it’s worth, we’re fans of this approach (see also: Alien: Isolation’s “Crew: Expendable” mission, set at the climax of 1979’s Alien), which lets players play through an iconic moment or two, but also offers up a wholly new story alongside it.
That story, in Great Circle’s case, is a globe-trotting adventure that spans the Vatican/Rome (including a lovingly recreated Castel Sant’Angelo, for all you Tosca fans), Egypt, Thailand, and more, as Indy seeks to solve a mystery involving the theft of ancient – and seemingly unrelated – artifacts from sites around the world. For the most part, the cast of characters is new, ranging from an enormous, foreboding Vatican agent (played, likeness and all, by Tony Todd, in his final acting role), an antifascist Italian journalist (Gina Lombardi), and, inevitably, legions upon legions of both Nazis and Italian Blackshirts. Yes, if you’re in the mood for punching right-wing bigots in the face, Great Circle has you covered.
There are, of course, some returning characters, including Indy himself (bearing Harrison Ford’s digital likeness, but voiced by Baker) and Indy’s old pal Marcus Brody (played in the films by Denholm Elliott, whose likeness is used here, with voicework by David Shaughnessy). The digital recreations of these familiar faces are quite good, though Baker’s sound-alike is an at-best imperfect Ford imitation, occasionally mumbling his line delivery in an effort to match Ford’s cadences. Shaughnessy does about as well mimicking Elliott, but I’ll pause here just to say that I think this kind of digital necromancy is the right kind: unlike, say, Alien: Romulus, this is a loving tribute to a deceased actor, in a way that I think pays tribute to Elliott.
BELONGS IN A MUSEUM
Speaking of, the best thing about Great Circle is the sense of immersion. Minor voice acting foibles aside, it’s wonderful to be adventuring around a world that looks and sounds just like the Indy films of old. Each of the game’s (surprisingly large and open) hub areas has been carefully designed to feel like places Indy might have visited on the big screen, with excellent puzzle designs, thrilling platforming challenges, and great rewards for exploration. The story plays like a lost film. The blend of humour, adventure, and human stakes is ably balanced. Once I learned this game comes from the same team responsible for the surprisingly excellent Chronicles of Riddick game from 2004, it made a lot more sense: here is a group of people who understand not only how to maintain fidelity with their source material, but to implement it appropriately for a decidedly different medium. It’s quite a bit like Alien: Isolation in this respect: the designers have clearly studied the Indy aesthetic inside and out, and constructed a world – and story – which feels right at home in that universe.
The second-best thing about Great Circle is the gameplay. If you’re sceptical about the choice of first-person perspective, you’re hardly alone. But having finally gotten my hands on it, I can say that this game completely makes sense as a first-person adventure. It’s not (thank god) a first-person-shooter, but rather an action-adventure title that prioritises stealth, exploration, and puzzle-solving. Indeed, using a gun is the worst part of Great Circle, and I was greatly relieved that most sections of the game can be overcome through a combination of stealth and fisticuffs – the melee combat is fantastic. But that first-person perspective, just as in Alien: Isolation, really does serve the immersion – you’re not just playing as Indy, you are Indy.
There are lots of other things to love about Great Circle. There’s the excellent score, which weaves together John Williams’s classic themes – including, yes, Marion’s – with new music composed by Gordy Haab for this game. The ultra-customizable difficulty is lovely, and in keeping with a recent trend of allowing players to tweak their games as they see fit, whether it’s adjusting the number of attackers, enemies’ sense of awareness, your strength in combat, and so on. There’s an overwhelming number of secret areas and side-quests to pursue, meaning that you may regularly find yourself distracted from the main story while off on a (usually rewarding, almost always entertaining) optional path.
There are some minor weaknesses – the disguise function (akin to Hitman) doesn’t always work as you might hope; sometimes the game “cheats” by overwhelming you with enemies rather than presenting a meaningful challenge; some of the puzzles are a bit confusing – but these are, in a word, minor. Great Circle is desperately begging for a virtual reality conversion, but that’s not so much a complaint as an invitation.
Otherwise, Great Circle is the great Indy game you’ve been waiting for since 1992, and will likely be remembered as the best interactive spinoff of a major film franchise since Alien: Isolation.
***
Final score: 9/10 whipcracks
Visit the official website for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle here.
