Indiana Jones and the Great Circle starts off just like a movie. Like a very specific movie, in fact, playing out the iconic Raiders of the Lost Ark opening, complete with legendary boulder chase. After this, there’s another hour or so of linearity, then it quickly becomes like a video game instead.
You need to buy a camera, but arrive without the money, so you have to explore the big wide world of the Vatican to find some. There’s little indication of where to go – just follow your instincts. There’s a freedom in this approach, but it also feels like a bit of a waste of such an esteemed license.
The Great Circle Has A Disjointed Approach
Some adventures you find yourself stumbling into are typical of Indy. You see a disturbed professor and discover his apprentice has been captured by the Italian fascists searching for a stone fragment with strange carvings. You sneak into the camp, free Sidney, head to the dig site to beat the baddies up, and recover the fragment yourself. It’s from the original tomb of St. Peter. This is a deviation from the main questline, but it also feels like a main questline Indy might follow in a film.
If you’re wondering how this makes any money, you simply steal it from the camp while rescuing Sidney.
Others feel less fitting. A nun asks him to find medicine, and while Indy does look out for those in need, he doesn’t take a break in the middle of the movie to find 15 collectibles. Not even in the bad ones. He also doesn’t waste his time trying to get inside an underground boxing ring motivated by seemingly nothing but FOMO. Though I haven’t reached the point myself yet, I also know I’ll soon be asked to find lost cats. Because we all so dearly loved that in Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
Because it is a video game and not a movie, you still feel compelled to do these things. Maybe there’s a reward for getting the medicine. Even if it’s not a worthwhile one, there’s still a mild serotonin buzz when you discover one and get to cross an item off the checklist. Underground boxing sounds kinda fun, too. Not urgent when I have this religious conspiracy involving giants and fascists, but probably good for a laugh eventually.
Idiana Jones Does Everything A Modern Video Game Should
I can understand why the game opens up this way. I don’t know if it’s a compromise between the industry’s shift towards player retention as a core metric and the need for open world filler versus MachineGames’ more linear approach, but some will tell you it’s the best of both worlds. The map is small enough to manage but large enough to feature many different areas, the side quests have their own narratives, and aside from getting camera money there’s no major need to even bother with them.
But I don’t want the best of both worlds. I just wanted a video game that felt like an Indiana Jones movie. For a lot of people, The Great Circle may well be that. It has reviewed exceedingly well and is popular with general audiences. But I don’t see how all this fluff makes the game any better, or brings it any closer to what surely must have been its goal of feeling like an Indiana Jones movie in the first place.
Why do we need to buy the camera at all, why couldn’t we simply have picked it up then moved onto uncovering the conspiracy? A more linear game could still make room for rescuing a prisoner from the fascist camp, and could even have done a highlight reel version of the boxing ring. Development time expended on making the map flow for open world shenanigans and collectibles could instead have been spent on bulking up the main storyline if there was a sense it needed pacing breaks or was too short.
Is The Great Circle A Case Of ‘What Could Have Been’?
Designing video games is hard, and things are rarely that simple. But MachineGames specialises in linear stories, and the studio was tasked with adapting one of the most iconic movie series in history. The obvious move from the start was to make a video game that felt like a movie, instead of what we’ve got, which is a video game based on a movie. Uncharted ripped Indiana Jones off, and it still seems to understand what makes an Indiana Jones video game better than the actual Indiana Jones game.
I’m enjoying my time with Indy enough. It’s still a good video game. By virtue of being the only decent one in memory that doesn’t feature Lego, it also clears the low bar of being the best Indiana Jones game. But it doesn’t really feel like the Indiana Jones game it could have been, it’s just a good game that stars Indiana Jones.
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OpenCritic
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Top Critic Rating:
86/100
- Released
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December 9, 2024
- Developer(s)
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MachineGames