I wasn’t expecting it to be this good. I’m talking about Indiana Jones and The Great Circle. I can clearly say it’s the best game I’ve played this year. I wasn’t even planning to play it if it hadn’t come to Game Pass. Since it arrived on Game Pass on day one, I started playing it, and in one word, it was perfect.
Is It Really a Good Game?
Indiana Jones is the cinematic action-adventure game that Xbox has been missing for years. Don’t be fooled by me calling it an action game; the game actually steers you more toward stealth. You play as Doctor Indiana Jones, an archaeologist who studies historical artifacts and ancient ruins around the world. One day, a strange historical artifact is stolen from the university where Dr. Jones works, and he sets out to find it.
The game takes place across many locations—some completely linear, others small open worlds. These cities aren’t just copies of each other. Each has its own unique atmosphere and culture. While acting as a fake priest uncovering the Church’s secrets in Vatican City, we’re searching for treasure inside the pyramids of Egypt.
All these cities distinguish themselves through both visuals and gameplay. For example, while playing in the Vatican, a friend gives you priest robes and tells officials that you’re a priest from America. You can freely move around the city pretending to be a priest. Of course, since it’s set during World War II, fascists are everywhere. While gameplay here focuses more on stealth, when you reach Egypt, you encounter more puzzles and exploration. By the time you reach Thailand, action comes more to the forefront. The game transforms into an experience where you travel by boat through a city covered in rivers, or swim if you prefer.
The game also takes you to many different linear locations beyond these three semi-open world cities. You visit Shanghai being bombed by the Japanese, and climb to the top of a mountain in the Himalayas.
The game is essentially a journey story. During World War II, Nazi Germany begins studying ancient legends to make themselves an unstoppable force. Our character, Indiana Jones, tries to solve these legends before the Nazis to save the world.
There’s something called the Great Circle that gives the game its name. When you connect the structures of the first ancient civilizations in history with a line, they form a perfect circle around the world. The Nazis believe they’ll gain tremendous power if they solve this mystery. Throughout the game, we visit the structures of civilizations that form this Great Circle.
The Films Are Perfectly Adapted
Indiana Jones and The Great Circle is based on the films. It takes place between the 1st and 3rd films of the cult Indiana Jones trilogy from the 1980s. I previously had no connection to Indiana Jones. Two days before the game came out, I sat down and watched the films. I recommend you do too—you don’t need to watch them to play the game, but I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much without watching them. They’ve perfectly adapted the film to a game. The films aren’t heavily realistic; they have a more cartoonish style, and the game preserves this well. They’ve maintained that delicate balance of seriousness and humor from the films.
In the films, Indiana Jones could use anything as a weapon. It’s the same in the game. A broom, guitar, rake, shovel—it doesn’t matter. You can use whatever God provides as a weapon. The game’s action is primarily melee combat. You have a pistol, but I barely used it throughout the game. You can also use weapons from enemies you kill, but they’re very poor. They designed the game around melee combat and didn’t want guns to be used, but they didn’t need to make them this bad. After all, you’re the team that made Wolfenstein.
There’s no advantage to using guns in the game. They don’t one-shot enemies or help you clear areas. The moment you fire, an alarm sounds and everyone piles on you. They included guns just to maintain atmospheric consistency. Most armed enemies even drop their weapons to engage in melee combat when attacking you.
The game offers many options for progression. You can sneak past Nazis if you want. You can find alternative routes through platforming and climbing. Or you can fight your way through by beating up Nazis. Of course, we’re not controlling a military soldier. Fighting large groups of enemies is definitely not easy. So even if you don’t plan to proceed stealthily, you need to take down enemies one by one or in small groups.
Personally, I usually progressed by sneaking around and switching to action when I was about to be caught.
AI Problems
The game’s artificial intelligence is poor. This isn’t very noticeable during action sequences, but during stealth, it’s terrible.
There are two possibilities. Either Adolf Hitler recruited Nazis exclusively from the farsighted, or the AI’s vision is problematic.
It was so bad that when an AI didn’t attack me in one instance, I thought this must be a friendly NPC. A year passed in-game before it finally started attacking me.
Similarly, I encountered several game-breaking bugs. In one scene, we’re supposed to board a boat with a story character. I need to push the boat. But the interaction button doesn’t work. If you try to press the button to push the boat before a character tells you to push it, the game freezes. You need to restart from the last checkpoint. I experienced similar bugs several times. Fortunately, the game saves frequently, so I didn’t have to go back far.
Graphics
The game faced criticism for its high system requirements before release. It was justified criticism. The game demands incredibly high specifications. Actually, the reason it needs such high specs isn’t so much about the power of the graphics cards, but rather the VRAM limitation. The game requires a lot of VRAM. Otherwise, the cards’ power is quite sufficient. I got 120 FPS on my 4060 laptop with a mix of high-medium settings. The card’s power would probably be enough for Ultra settings too, but I can’t use them because of insufficient VRAM.
The game’s graphics are incredible, especially during cutscenes. You might not notice as much during gameplay, but during cutscenes, you sit and watch like it’s a film. Especially during long cutscenes, you forget you’re playing a game and watch it like a movie. For the game, Harrison Ford’s face, who played Indiana Jones in the films, was recreated perfectly and performed by Troy Baker, who appears in almost every game. He performed so well that Harrison Ford said, “If I knew it would be this good, I would have played it myself.” That’s how good he was. Normally, I get very annoyed when voice actors change in films or games. For example, I was irritated by Rick and Morty’s new voices in the new season, even though they were nearly identical to the originals. Even the slightest change in tone bothers me. But Troy Baker voiced it so well that I’m sure many people thought Harrison Ford did the voice.
You could take this game and release it as an animated film, and no one would object. The scenes are so good that you can see a character literally foaming with rage. They’ve managed to show this visually. Seriously, they’ve done it. The character’s saliva sticks between his lips and stretches out. It’s insane work.
Cinematic moments are very well prepared. Especially the cinematic action scenes are beautifully done. Jumping from one fighter plane to another mid-air, ramming a Nazi convoy on land with a boat. I wish there were many more scenes like this.
Things Nobody Cares About
I want to mention something. Probably no one else in the world has noticed this, but it really bothered me. While moving forward in a boat, the character on the boat tries to balance by leaning in the opposite direction the boat is tilting. But this animation really bothered me. It leans perfectly. It looks very artificial, but as I said, I’m probably the only person in the world who noticed this.
I was going to convert the scene to a gif and put it here, but I’m getting a silly technical error. You can check the YouTube link here
Another thing probably only I noticed. When boarding and disembarking from the ship, the character Gina teleports. They didn’t create an animation for boarding the boat. Instead, when Dr. Jones turns around to start the engine, Gina teleports inside the boat. Of course, the player doesn’t see this, but it’s obvious she teleported there.
Speaking of boats, something else came to mind. While moving forward in the boat, a tree branch fell onto my boat and tumbled around inside the boat according to the boat’s movements. It was perfect. I never expected to see something like that. These kinds of details make you love the game.
Puzzles and Side Content
The game has many puzzles. Neither too hard nor too easy. Just the right difficulty. If you want harder puzzles, you can find them as side content. There’s plenty of side content that doesn’t appear as missions. You find a note on the ground. It mentions a safe, but the password is forgotten. You go somewhere else, and someone took notes because they often forgot the password. You go back and open the safe, finding an old book. These aren’t even quests. By doing these extra activities, you can develop your character.
There’s no skill tree in the game. Machine Games, the developer, basically said, “What’s with unlocking skills with one click? Read some books and get cultured.” You read books to develop your character. You can find these books as you progress through the game or while doing side content. Or you can say “Money talks, right?” and buy them. Character development doesn’t have a very significant impact on the game. You can easily finish the game without developing your character at all.
Conclusion
With its mockery of Nazis and its action, the game is truly enjoyable, and I strongly recommend playing it if you have Game Pass.
