An Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Sequel Should Borrow One Assassin’s Creed Trick

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 15, 2025 8 Views 7 Min Read
An Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Sequel Should Borrow One Assassin's Creed Trick



One of the most pleasant surprises in gaming from last year was the success of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Developed by MachineGames — the studio behind Wolfenstein: The New Order and Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus — Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a first-person action-adventure game whose gameplay heavily emphasizes stealth and puzzles. The Great Circle received praise thanks to Troy Baker’s performance as Indiana Jones and the game’s adherence to the tone and atmosphere. Even though the game is a timed Xbox exclusive, it still reached a wide audience by launching on Xbox Game Pass.

Disney itself has apparently picked up on the positive buzz surrounding The Great Circle‘s release. According to a recent rumor, Disney “wants more Indiana Jones” from MachineGames. A sequel seems like a sure shot given The Great Circle‘s success, and the demand is certainly there. If MachineGames does revisit the world of Indiana Jones, one gameplay element from its first foray is begging to be updated.

Robocop Rogue City Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

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Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and RoboCop: Rogue City Should Spark a Revolution

Though they are rather different, Robocop Rogue City and Indiana Jones and the Crystal Circle share a similarity that other games can learn from.

How Other Stealth Games Could Inspire The Great Circle’s Successor

Stealth plays a much bigger role in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle than it does in MachineGames’ previous games. While Indiana Jones can handle himself in a fight, he isn’t some super soldier like B.J. Blazkowicz. Indiana Jones starts out the game with limited stamina and low health, meaning that prolonged fights can easily lead to his death. Therefore, he primarily relies on stealth to navigate the game’s many maps.

How Stealth Works in The Great Circle

Stealth in The Great Circle is fairly basic and will feel familiar to anyone who has played a first-person game with stealth mechanics. Initiating stealth while crouching, Indiana Jones has to avoid his enemies’ lines of sight and can throw glass bottles to create distractions. While this system is lacking in nuance, the simplistic stealth is in line with the rest of the game’s design and provides a forgiving experience for anyone playing on the default difficulty. That said, one aspect of the stealth gameplay is perhaps a little too stripped down.

When players kill or knock out an enemy while sneaking around, they have the ability to then pick up the enemy’s body in order to hide it. This prevents other enemies from stumbling upon the body and sounding the alarm. This is a common mechanic in stealth games. The only problem is that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle doesn’t give the player a clear idea of what to actually do with the body.

The Issue With The Great Circle’s Stealth

Other stealth games like the Assassin’s Creed series provide players with an ample number of designated body disposal areas. These can come in the form of hay bales, bushes, crates, and more. If a player drops a body in one of the areas, they no longer have to worry about other enemies finding this evidence.

The Great Circle expects players to hide bodies in such a manner, but the game offers no indication of where the bodies are meant to be hidden. Players can pick up the body of a defeated foe, but all they can really do is throw the figure on the ground around a corner and hope that it isn’t discovered. Carrying a body also drains Indiana Jones’ stamina quickly, which discourages players from leaving the immediate vicinity of where they knocked out the enemy.

These elements make the otherwise sufficient stealth system feel dated and can lead to frustrating situations where the player is discovered by the enemies simply because the game didn’t clearly convey that an enemy’s body had been hidden. If MachineGames does make another Indiana Jones game, these issues can easily be resolved by adding the body stashing system present in most popular stealth games. An occasional crate or leaf pile could go a long way in improving players’ experiences.

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