METROCreating an Indiana Jones game today seems like a simple task: you take Nathan Drake from Uncharted, send him back 80-odd years, give him a fedora and a whip, and sit back and watch the golden idols arrive. Uncharted developer Naughty Dog perfected the blueprint for Indy-inspired globe-trotting action games more than a decade ago, and no one would blame Swedish studio MachineGames if it stuck to it.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle chooses not to. Instead, he often goes to great lengths to thwart such comparisons. This unconventional blockbuster has more in common with games like Dishonored and Hitman than it does with Uncharted. Sure, it has action and spectacle and occasionally dabbles in platforming, but it puts a much greater emphasis on puzzles, overt stealth, and letting you punch fascists while dressed as a priest.
Set in 1937, between Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, The Great Circle puts Indy on the trail of a mysterious cult of giants, after one of its imposing members breaks into Marshall College and steals a mummified cat from the archaeological exhibits of the institution. . While it’s not the wildest setting for an adventure, it’s enough of an excuse for Indy to begin a sightseeing tour of several of the world’s most important historical landmarks.
Its first port of call is Vatican City, where The Great Circle lays out the rules it will follow for much of its duration. Vatican City is a large labyrinthine sandbox that players can explore at their own pace. Or they would be, if it weren’t for all the fascists lurking around. The Holy See is angry with Mussolini’s thugs, who usually attack Indy on sight. You can fight them if you wish, but it’s generally best to evade enemies in public spaces by sneaking down alleys, climbing on rooftops, or acquiring disguises that will fool all but the shrewdest officers.
Vatican City is an amazing play space: a dizzying environment filled with hidden passageways, underground tombs, fenced guard camps, and a stunning recreation of the Sistine Chapel. You’ll spend several hours running between, over and under its buildings, and solving puzzles such as deciphering security codes and unlocking elaborate ancient contraptions. There are numerous fascist-controlled areas to infiltrate, an underground boxing ring where you can try out the game’s first-person fights, and even a side quest to find a lost cat.
In fact, the city is so exquisitely designed that it dwarfs the rest of the game. Which is notable when your next destination is the Pyramids of Giza. Here The Great Circle switches to a more traditional, less complex and holistic open world mode, with more isolated locations and objectives. That said, it offers more room to experiment with Indy’s abilities.
In the Indy dances with the Blackshirts and the Wehrmacht, The Great Circle aims to evoke the improvisational action of Spielberg’s films. Stealth is rarely mandatory, but always viable; The environments are filled with hammers, shovels, and trowels that are perfect for beating a Nazi’s brain out. In open combat, the fighting system combines simple punching with grappling and shoving, while landing a knockout blow produces one of the best stun drills since Grand Theft Auto IV. Weapons are easy to get, but using them seems like a lack of imagination. It’s more fun to knock the firearm out of your enemy’s hand and then tie him to you to feed him a triple-decker knuckle sandwich.
These systems are always fun to play with, and when added to the regular tomb raiding attacks and more cinematic narrative intervals, it all adds up to a pleasantly varied experience. However, the game’s flexibility comes at the cost of pacing. For all its admirable qualities, The Great Circle sometimes feels too slow-paced for an Indiana Jones adventure. Both the first and second acts conclude in strange, quiet fashion, and would benefit from some Spielbergian fireworks to close. Also, considering that immersion is a big factor here, it’s strange that The Great Circle constantly pulls you out of its first-person perspective, often for scenes that seem like they’d be considerably more fun to replay.
Fortunately, the adventure picks up pace about halfway through, leading to a third and final historic sandbox before setting up for the grand finale. Taken as a whole, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a lavish, comprehensive, and affectionate expansion of Spielberg’s films, deeply understanding and enthusiastically invested in the story he weaves beneath his circular MacGuffin hunt.
At this point, while The Great Circle serves primarily as light-hearted entertainment, there’s more urgency than usual to the anti-fascist sentiment that runs through most of Indy’s adventures. The Big Circle doesn’t just let you punch Nazis, it dissects far-right ideology as a whole and actively explores how would-be autocrats build their power over the bodies of disaffected young people. “Nothing is as easy to manipulate as an insecure man,” the game’s main Nazi antagonist boasts at one point. In this, The Great Circle demonstrates that, far from belonging to a museum, Indiana Jones is more relevant than ever.