Indiana Jones and the Great Circle wouldn’t have been a true Indiana Jones journey if it didn’t whisk Indy away to some culturally resonant and significant locations for archaeological exploration and peril, and MachineGames’ action-adventure epic certainly charts an elaborate course. Chronicling everything in a hefty journal, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle simultaneously hits a wonderful biome quota for interesting level designs and balances side content and cinematic spectacles on a knife’s edge. Plus, not only is each setting distinct in its climate and visuals but also in how unique its assortment of resources is.
Everywhere Indy travels to features region-specific items and weapons, including what bottles of alcohol someone would naturally find in that locale, and while such an attentive detail would seem like common sense it contributes greatly to Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s real-world historical immersion. Moreover, this immersion extends to the breads and fruits that players are constantly harvesting for bonus health and stamina, layering textured insights into what each region’s particular cuisines were like in 1937.
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Indiana Jones and the Great Circle starts as linearly and cinematically as players may suspect, but the Vatican reveals its true colors.
How Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s Items and Consumables Keep It Immersive
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is entirely immersive based solely on the diverse landscapes players revisit but also takes immersion a step further by ensuring that items or consumables players naturally grab as they go adhere to these locations as well. Some items and consumables carry over for the sake of consistency or maybe even just having perfectly justifiable repeat assets, and yet it’s staggering to see how each setting with an emphasis on exploration and collectibles—the Vatican, Gizeh, and Sukhothai—features its own assortment of bread and fruits that would be native to the region:
- Vatican: donuts, cornettos, biscottis, oranges, apples, figs, and pears.
- Gizeh: kahk cookies, aish baladi bread, zaghloul dates, oranges, persimmons, and prickly pears.
- Sukhothai: milk tea bread, pathongko, hopia pastries, rambutans, mangosteens, star fruit, and bananas.
This is a detail that could easily be overlooked if players aren’t terribly mindful of what they’re picking up all the time, and while it’s an incredibly rich and praise-worthy detail it isn’t important gameplay-wise to have an armor-reinforcing consumable be a donut or a slice of milk tea bread. Still, because Indiana Jones and the Great Circle upholds a responsibility to retain realism in its globe-trotting adventure, it’s brilliant and understated that consumables reflect the location they’re found in.
This allows players to fully steep themselves in the immersion of the setting rather than having each gigantic map feel superficial and regurgitated. Consequently, each location players can revisit in Indy’s journal is remarkably distinct from one another as well as brimming with character and cultural significance.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Respects Each Cultural Backdrop
Likewise, as players either aimlessly or purposefully scavenge and search for collectibles, culturally specific recipes can be found, such as Italy’s Cacio e Pepe or Siam’s Tom Yum Goong, and make for delectable text logs that cut through the standard drawl of miscellaneous notes. Because so much time can be spent idly traversing environments in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, it’s wonderful that such exploration is rich whether players are actively searching for landmarks and ongoings to photograph or if they’re scanning available sustenance on a nearby table.
This is especially true in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s clandestine boxing rings, where players can find a large helping of bread and fruit to hopefully give them a safety net against their three opponents. It can be easy to move on from one location to another if players are avoiding optional content, but Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s gameplay offers more than enough reasons to stick around and enjoy their time in every setting, even if that time is spent merely indulging in a region’s culinary delights.
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