Indiana Jones And The Great Circle Preview – the most authentic movie adaptation of all time?-David Jenkins-Entertainment – Metro

Indiana Jones And The Great Circle – better than Dial of Destiny (Bethesda)

Bethesda and MachineGames seek fortune and glory in a big budget adaptation of Indiana Jones that plays as good as it looks.

It might not be Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, but Indiana Jones has had a fairly profound influence on video game history. Even beyond Tomb Raider and Uncharted, any game with stolen idols and ancient temples will inevitably tip its fedora to Dr Henry Jones, Jr.

Unless you count the Lego games, there’s never been a genuinely good action title based on his adventures but the two point ‘n’ click LucasArts games from the early 90s were both excellent. A little too good, you might say, since 1992’s Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis is considerably more entertaining than either of the two most recent movies.

In fact, it’s easy to argue that nothing Indiana Jones related has been any good for at least 30 years now. After playing around three hours of MachineGames’ latest game though we can happily confirm that that curse has been broken and The Great Circle is both a loving adaptation of the film series and a great game in its own right.

As has been increasingly obvious from the trailers so far, The Great Circle works very much in the same mould as all of MachineGames’ other work. Even back when most of the team worked at Starbreeze, making The Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay and The Darkness, they’ve always specialised in first person shooters with a strong narrative element and peppered with small open world areas where you can talk to characters and pick up side quests between main missions.

Their two Wolfenstein games worked like that too and The Great Circle is no different. We played three separate sections, starting right at the beginning where Indy interrupts a nighttime intruder who steals a seemingly worthless artefact. Marshall College looks exactly like it does in the film and while the impersonation of Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott died some years ago) is merely okay we’re still hugely impressed by Troy Baker’s version of Indiana Jones.

It’s not that it’s a perfect impression but Harrison Ford has such a distinctive voice, and Baker has so much dialogue to perform, that it’s amazing how quickly you accept them as one and the same. Many have balked at the idea that the game is first person but that’s MachineGames’ shtick and we’re not going to fault them for it. The game does switch to third person when doing things like climbing ladders though and there are a lot of cut scenes… a lot. But that’s essential to ensuring The Great Circle doesn’t become a mindless arcade game.

Naturally, the college section is a simple tutorial, introducing you to the basics of combat. They’re very basic indeed, if you forget to use your whip – which we constantly did – but hearing the ground-shaking thump of the Lucasfilm punching sound effect more than makes up for that. The whip is also used like a grappling hook, to climb up and around obstacles, but a lot of the combat revolves around picking up whatever’s close to hand, from bottles to frying pans, and smacking Nazis round the head with it.

We didn’t get to see much of the bad guy’s side of the story but we’re still afraid it revolves around Graham Hancock style nonsense about ancient monuments lining up in a row, which is somehow going to unleash a great power. This requires collecting a lot of ancient MacGuffins from around the world, either getting there before the Third Reich or stealing it off them if they arrived first.

The second section was set in Vatican City, where Indy is trying to meet up with a friendly priest and avoid the fascistas. There’s a lot of stealth in The Great Circle and Indy’s preferred method of combat is either to sneak up behind someone and knock them out or avoid them entirely. The stealth is relatively complex, in that you can and should move bodies and must be careful what order you take out lookouts or a guard’s absence will be noticed.

While creeping around it’s best to check desks and draws for anything useful, with the game having a complex series of skill upgrades, most linked to books which you find that you can then apply skill points to. The one that gives you a second chance if you get knocked out, if you can quickly find and put your hat back on, is as useful as it sounds, while other options are the usual health or power upgrades, as well as a number of extra melee combat moves.

Indiana Jones And The Great Circle screenshot – the map shows how big the open world area is (Bethesda)

Each area also has optional secrets and side quests, including the relatively linear Vatican section. These are made clearer if you use your camera in a manner similar to the scanner from Metroid Prime, as you take photos of important areas or objects and then fill in your notebook with useful clues and references.

This is particularly useful in the third section in Egypt, with a Nazi dig centred around the Sphinx, where we got to see the game with the stabilisers off. This section features a fairly large open world area, where you can wander around in disguise, talking to and making allies (Sallah doesn’t seem to be present, if you were wondering).

You can busy yourself with a number of side quests but even when you embrace the main story quests they’re split up into several parts that you can tackle in any order you want. You’re after a number of Egyptian stelae, some of which are waiting to be transported off site – so are fairly easy to steal from the garage – while others you have to discover for yourself.

It’s all very obviously inspired by the Egyptian section of Raiders Of The Lost Ark and yet somehow it manages not to overdose on memberberries, in the way that most modern Star Wars does. Perhaps because Indiana Jones games are rare, but we became completely engrossed in the adventure and the feeling that we were Dr Jones himself.

The graphics are superb throughout – the game clearly cost a fortune to make – and we loved all the little fan friendly touches, such as infestations of creepy crawlies and the iconic shadow of Indy’s silhouette when he moves in front of a light source.

In terms of a first person Indiana Jones game, it really does seem perfect but we’re certain it’ll also be enjoyable to anyone that doesn’t like the films – if such people exist. The only thing we’re not entirely clear on from the demo is how complex the puzzles get. We got briefly stuck a couple of times though, on what we assume is still a fairly early point in the game, so that’s a good sign.

There’s a surprising lack of hand-holding and while it never gets as complex as Fate Of Atlantis the puzzle-solving is several steps beyond what you’d normally expect from a triple-A blockbuster. We just hope there’s a reference to fine leather jackets at some point.

We have no idea how successful the game is going to be, considering the damage the last film did to the franchise’s reputation, but we can find no serious fault in what we’ve seen so far. MachineGames has long been one of our favourite Western developers and this looks like a welcome new evolution of their house style and something that will challenge Alien Isolation as the most authentic movie adaption of all time.

Formats: PC (previewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5
Price: £69.99*
Publisher: Bethesda
Developer: MachineGames
Release Date: 9th December 2024 (spring 2025 on PS5)
Age Rating: 16

*day one on Game Pass – not including Game Pass Standard

Indiana Jones And The Great Circle screenshot – this brief cut scene with the main villain is all we saw of him (Bethesda)

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