There was understandably a degree of scepticism coming into this game from two fronts. The Indiana Jones IP across all mediums hasn’t had a release that has lit the world on fire since 1989, with there only being a handful of video games like the Fate of Atlantis and the LEGO adaptation that have broken the franchise’s streak of mediocrity. And on a second front, Machine Games have not released a good title since 2017, the misfire of Youngblood being so massive that a huge fan of the preceding games like myself has refused to touch it to this day. Yet, if there was any developer on the planet who had the best possible CV to be put to task on an Indy game, it had to be the guys that have made their name out of killing Nazis for a living. And against all odds, they nailed it. Simply put, The Great Circle is a perfect adaptation of this beloved adventure IP to a big-budget video game.

Set in the year between Raiders and the Last Crusade, the Great Circle sees the ever-charming, passionate and resourceful Dr Jones thrust into a globetrotting adventure to stop the power contained within the eponymous theory from falling into the wrong hands. Like the films, it’s a plot that’s simple to understand, yet grounded in enough existing history to make the Great Circle’s power both interesting and believable, even with potential supernatural forces in play.

But what drives this plot the most are the exceptional performances and writing from the entire cast. The legendary Troy Baker had big shoes to fill when taking on the face of Harrison Ford, but he absolutely killed it, nailing Indy’s mannerisms via impeccable speech intonation, his well-timed wit and drive for adventure, and body movements within the game’s many lengthy cutscenes. Gini Lombardi, an Italian reporter on the hunt for her missing sister, is his companion this time around, and she makes a strong impression by trying to challenge Indy to keep up with her, as if the world’s greatest archaeologist needed any reminder. The Nazi villains are truly excellent as well, displaying an impeccable balance of eccentricity, threat, and respect for Indy’s skill, even when he has them on the back foot.

Various supporting characters also assist Indy at each stop on his journey, but these largely serve to keep the plot moving and play off the main cast. The game’s focus on a condensed number of characters is one of its greatest assets, avoiding potentially filler subplots to allow the tonally perfect writing, conflict and humour to remain in the spotlight. This even applies to side activities, as the majority of them serve to flesh out the background and key players of the overarching narrative. So despite a considerable percentage of this game being dedicated to cutscenes, I was engaged in every single one of them, and never felt any rush to get back to the gameplay, in spite of its excellence in that department as well.

The Great Circle is a mix between more linear, set-piece-driven environments, and larger, fully explorable open spaces with plentiful side quests to complete, puzzles to solve, tombs to raid, artifacts to obtain, and Nazis to whip, punch and shoot. So while the main quest will cleanly drive you through these smaller environments with relative speed, it is likely to become the secondary attraction when you enter the larger areas of the Vatican, Giza and Sukhothai.

The design of these spaces is surprisingly most reminiscent of the latest Hitman games, in that they are relatively small in size yet remain incredibly dense, with the indoor areas having lots to discover, and the outdoor spaces providing multiple valid pathways to complete objectives. One of my favourite features concerns various unmarked mini-quests, where you overhear someone looking for help, and giving them what they want will result in a small reward, thus adding much additional life to each area. The maps are worth a shoutout too, in that you navigate them in the same way as looking down at a real-life map, and the objective marker is only visible in this mode, thus really encouraging you to traverse these spaces without a guide. Each area is so crammed with content that a single one offers someone more to do than what the entire runtime of your average modern shooter campaign tends to deliver. They are impeccably designed levels and are truly some of the best in the industry.

Combat is very much secondary to the adventuring, but it too is excellent when you get into a scrap. Fist fights are simple but satisfying, offering left and right hooks, blocking, dodging and parrying, with great audio and visual feedback across the board. In many encounters, it would be advantageous to be improvisational with various environmental objects that can further serve to beat down your foes, where everything from a broomstick to a bottle acts as a viable weapon. The whip has its offensive functions too, either forcing an enemy into a grapple, stealing their weapon, or knocking them off their feet for a satisfying kick down. Gun combat is solid albeit used sparingly; ammo is very limited, and Indy is most certainly not BJ Blazkowicz, and will struggle to survive in an outmatched gunfight. The singular complaint I have about this game is that combat is generally quite easy even on hard difficulty, though I don’t think a Mein Leben challenge level would have been the most appropriate for this type of experience.

The Great Circle is a pretty demanding game, being one of the first out there to require a GPU that has hardware ray-tracing built in for you to be able to launch it. But thankfully, the technical sorcery of the id Tech engine has ensured performance remains solid in spite of this requirement. Running at largely medium to high settings at 1080p, I was consistently achieving around 80-90fps minimum in every part of the game outside of the third open area, whose jungle and river setting’s greater complexity of lighting understandably brought my hardware below 60fps during traversal.

Unsurprisingly, the game looks absolutely stunning in every department. The intro sequence is the perfect reference point to see just how impressively it captures the various real-world details that would be necessary for an authentic and immersive Indy experience. And these details are maintained in the larger segments of the package as well, with the population hubs of each open area and the character models being further highlights in the game’s excellent presentation.

And in terms of overall content, it really depends on your spirit of adventure. If you only want to do the exploration necessary for the main campaign, then you could probably wrap it up in about 15 hours. But if you want to fully embody Indiana and explore every nook and cranny of these environments, you’re looking at around double the playtime. I would say the latter approach gives you the ideal length for this experience, as all of it is excellent, with pretty much zero filer present in the entire package.

The Great Circle is a case study of what happens when you match the right developer with the right IP; you get arguably the best piece of media to release in this franchise since The Last Crusade. The performances are impeccable from all of the cast, most notably the villains and Troy Baker, the gameplay loop captures every aspect of the character, and the high quality of both of these elements means you’re getting an incredible Indiana Jones film to watch alongside a truly remarkable game to play. Machine Games knocked it out of the park, proving that they are the best to call when you need someone to make a fantastic Nazi-beating simulator.

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