Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has you playing as Indy. You need to find out why an artifact that you recovered was stolen from the college where you work. You travel the globe to solve this mystery.
Released on December 8th, 2024
Developed by Machine games
Published by Bethesda Softworks
You start the game by exploring a jungle with a crew. You are trying to retrieve an artifact. It’s your standard Indiana Jones experience. Of course, nothing goes your way. But Indy pushes onward. You learn about solving puzzles and dealing with traps. It’s your standard tutorial stuff.
After the introduction/tutorial you wake up in a school that you work in. A giant of a dude appears. He looks like Tony Todd and is voiced by him. I recognized him as Candyman from the movie Candyman. He breaks into your school and steal an artifact. This is where the game really begins. You decide to travel to the Vatican. You want to find out why he stole the artifact.
You will meet a great cast of characters along your adventure some bad some good.
The game is played in first person for the most part. Climbing and using your whip to swing or climb are in third person. The cutscenes are also in third person.
The game does not have manual save’s it uses a checkpoint system. This can be annoying as I always lost progress each time I stopped playing. If you pay attention to the top right a hat icon pops up that’s the autosave icon. This can help you decide to stop playing without losing progress.
The Tombs, Ruins and caves you explore are fantastic. The atmosphere is incredible. I loved looking around and seeing all the detail they put into them. There are a good amount not too many puzzles for you to solve and none too hard. There are some traps for you to avoid. Of course, you must outrun some since it is an Indiana Jones game after all.
The location’s you get to go to in this game do feel good sized. There is a lot to do in each location. There are side missions, or field work as they call it in game. These are optional but do give you more information on the main quest. They also have cutscenes. I say the field work is worth doing you also get adventure points as well. You can also move the camera slightly in the cutscenes I don’t know why but you can.
Each area has a set number of collectibles in them. As you collect them, you get adventure points. Some have lore attached if you want to read it. The collectibles have a white outline to make it easier to spot. There is an option in the options to turn down or off the with outline.
You also find discoveries along the way. These discoveries need you to collect a set amount of something, like 10 ancient relics in the Vatican. They also give you adventure points.
You find mysteries by looking at notes or talking to people sometimes they are just giving to you. If you finish these optional quests, you will get adventure points. Mysteries are solved by doing a quick puzzle or solving a riddle.
Adventure books are found or sometimes bought throughout your adventure. These books are new abilities or health and stamina upgrades. You spend adventure points to read the books and unlock the skill. In each area you can buy books like ones that reveal mysteries or book in the location you are in.
You can find medicine bottles. You can exchange them for the health and stamina upgrade books. You still have to use adventure points to unlock these books. These carry over to all locations so you can exchange ones you found in the first area at any location.
Each location has its own currency. You can steal it from the enemy or find it in lock boxes. These boxes might have a lock that requires you to solve a puzzle for the combination. Sometimes there are boxes you can just smash. You will need money to buy equipment or books. Each location for the most part has a new piece of equipment you will need to buy.
Don’t worry too much about finishing each area before moving on to the next. You will get new equipment in new locations. This might make it easier to get some of the collectibles you need. Once you finish the game, it lets you return to each location. This way, you can finish everything you have not.
During your adventure you will find food that gives you temporary health and fruit that gives you temporary stamina. You find this all over the place always a good idea to eat as much as you can. There are achievements/trophies tied to eating certain food/fruits so eat away. Also, bandages are used to restore health.
One of the most used pieces of equipment is the camera. You will see a camera icon in the top left of the screen. This icon indicates you can take a photo for adventure points and engage in a little dialogue. You can also take pics of cats and people for adventure points. You take pics of plaque’s and writing to translate them. The camera is something you will for sure use a lot. There are achievements/trophies tied to taking pictures.
For the most part you will be stealthing around enemies. you can sneak up to enemies and use melee weapons to knock out enemies. Make sure to take an enemy out with a guitar for an achievements/trophy. If you want, you can also pick up enemies and hide them. Enemies are pretty oblivious on moderate difficulty.
Some area you can get rid of the guards, and they won’t return. Others they keep coming back.
Disguises are very important in your adventure. They will make it so you can walk around without everyone getting suspicious of you. Captains will still be suspicious of you just stay out of there line of sight. You will still have to remain unseen in restricted areas even if you’re wearing a disguise.
If you are seen, you can quickly take out the enemy to stay unseen or you can run away. If you fire a gun, it will alert the enemies around so be careful.
Should You Play?
YES this is a great game I really hope they make another one. Bethesda has a winning formula with this franchise. At the time of writing this is on gamepass both Xbox and PC. There are always deals going on with gamepass you can check out this game cheap.
The characters you meet are interesting and fun. The main bad guy is a well-done bad guy, right up there with Vaas from Far Cry 3. That said the banter/sarcasm with girl that travels with you can get really annoying it just happens to much.
The pace of the tombs feels really good. There is a good mix of puzzles and traps. We never felt stuck for too long trying to figure them out. Gameplay wise felt great sneaking around and taking out a room full of enemies so I can freely look around. Combat is alright, didn’t use guns often. Hand to hand combat has a flow to it with dogging and countering.
The Atmosphere is the best part of this game. Exploring tombs and caves is so much fun. They look amazing. I was always excited to go to the next one and see what it looks like. Especially the desert ones with the scorpions it is cool.
The only part of the game that I feel was unforgiving was the giant snake part. It almost felt out of place for this game. You just die so fast if you mess up. The beginning of this part is not very straightforward about what to do. But that could just be me.
Also, not having manual saves was not a good choice. The checkpoint system caused me to lose progress each time I stopped playing. I am not a fan of this feature at all.
One last thing. I had a hard time running this game on PC. My computer is good enough to handle it. It felt bogged down and dropped a lot of frames. Then it worked fine for a short period of time then went back to running bad. So I switched over to my Xbox Series X and the game not only looked better but ran smooth. I wish you could change the FOV (Field of View) on Xbox. It was still a lot of fun to play.
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