Review – Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

If you were born in the 80s or 90s, you probably have the classic Indiana Jones films in your memory. Directed by Steven Spielberg, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), The Temple of Doom (1984) and The Last Crusade (1989) were very successful on the big screen and also on the small screen, being extensively replayed on TV. I must have watched each one dozens of times. However, it cannot be ignored that the franchise is a work of its time, difficult to operate today. It amazes me that they insisted on the catastrophic sequels The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) and The Relic of Destiny (2023), with Harrison Ford already very old.

Obviously the franchise became games, starting on Atari and alternating between genres until 2011, when its last adventure was produced by Zynga for Facebook, targeting children. Except for Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (1992), a PC point and click, and the 3D games from the LEGO franchise (released between 2008 and 2009), no game was any good. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle came to change everything and solve the problem of time, bringing our beloved Dr. Jones to his peak and to a new audience – in addition to satisfying fans’ fervent nostalgia.

A game with the quality of classic films

When Uncharted made its debut on PS3, it was hard not to think of Nathan Drake as a replacement for Indiana Jones. The game has everything that the Indy films present: mysteries, climbing, exotic settings, exploration in tombs, lots of humor and action bordering on the impossible. It took too long for someone to take this uncut gem and polish it. It was only in 2021 that MachineGames took on the task with the support of Bethesda, this time to make a game with a first-person perspective just like the developer’s other excellent FPS, such as . It’s the first Indiana Jones game in this genre, so expectations were a mix of hype and fear of bombs.

Believe it or not, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was very successful as an FPS. Especially because all the game’s cutscenes occur in third person, contextualizing everything that happens around the protagonist and other characters. The gameplay works naturally on vertical exploration and swinging the whip, without any strangeness or difficulty. And all the essence of classic films is present here, including the well-worn archaeologist explorer’s outfit and his inseparable hat.

The adventure begins with a faithful reproduction of the film Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark, with the iconic golden idol trap scene, with a giant stone ball rolling towards you. A brief tribute to kick off this unprecedented story, which begins with Dr. Jones waking up from a dream at Marshall University (in Connecticut, USA) and investigating an invasion during a storm. A Cat Mummy figurine has been stolen by a giant man and Indy wants to find out why.

Diversity in exploration and mysteries

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has 7 chapters, also passing through Vatican City (Italy), Giza (Egypt), Himalayas, Shanghai (China), Sukhothai (Thailand) and Iraq. Three of these chapters feature a huge map that serves as a hub to connect with side missions, fast travel, upgrades and more. All of these scenarios are beautiful, very well constructed and full of secrets to find. Little by little, the player frees up areas of the map, unlocking doors or accessing them in other ways to find rewards and important documents, which deepen the main story.

The maps of Indy are very well detailed, making it difficult to get lost in the directions, objectives and solutions to the puzzles. The game still allows you to use firearms, although stealth is always the best way. In this aspect, the game offers difficulty levels that reflect the enemy alert system and how much of a hit you can take. Or gunshots, especially when Nazi soldiers enter the picture. The game even gives you a second chance when you fall, returning to the action when you get the hat back.

The gameplay allows you to fight with your own fists (with defense, dodge and counterattack), use different objects to perform a “takedown”, use a lighter to illuminate dark places, and so on. Nothing innovative in the genre, of course, but everything works well. The shortcuts on the D-Pad are well distributed and there are many options, such as eating bread to recover armor. But not everything is perfect: it happened several times that an object that was with me or nearby disappeared, especially after a cutscene in the same area. The lack of polish in surface detection during animations when picking up an object or carrying an unconscious soldier when there is a wall, table, box and other things nearby, crossing everything as if they were not solid, is also evident. Some animation transitions occur in a truncated manner, both for Indy and for NPCs, such as his companion Gina. She’s full of tricks, leaving one place and appearing in another out of nowhere.

Voss, a respectable villain

The game features several memorable characters throughout its 20-hour campaign (more than 30 if you want to complete all the side quests). Padre Antonio, Gina, Locus, Nawal, Pailin and others are very interesting and have great lines of dialogue, always keeping the player intrigued by everything. But nothing, absolutely nothing, comes close to the villain Emmerich Voss, a manipulative Nazi archaeologist and master of tricks. Every time he appears he steals the show, such is the quality of the script and the performance/dubbing by actor Marios Gavrilis. And look, we have the celebrity in the role of the protagonist, huh! The PT-BR dubbing also leaves nothing to be desired, except for some intonation flaws and inferior dubbing for secondary characters, such as Annika.

As for the puzzles, there is a good variety and some of them are mandatory to advance the story, which may frustrate less attentive players. I had a hard time with two of them, but I just had to check the notes in my diary and pay more attention to finally solve them. The secondary mysteries involve much more complicated puzzles, and I gave up on some just to avoid stress. For those who enjoy brain challenges, you will spend a lot of time visiting these areas through free navigation between the chapters already completed.

Graphically, the game is very beautiful, especially the setting. It’s a shame that on PC Path Tracing was poorly integrated, bringing down performance too much. Even with the game updates, my RTX 4070 Super struggled to deliver more than 40 FPS with Path Tracing on Medium, at 2K, on ​​Ultra and with DLSS turned on in Quality mode. I preferred to turn off Path Tracing and enjoy the stable game, running above 100 FPS most of the time. Another criticism is the animations in the background, always occurring at a very low frame rate. It clashes a lot with the overall quality.

I confess I didn’t have faith at first, but Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a game! I was surprised by a delicious adventure, which leaves the player free most of the time to make their own decisions, using disguises, creating distractions and so on. The game leaves room for error, not being complex and punishing like a real Hitman, thus ensuring fun. The story is undoubtedly its best quality and would even make an incredible film. Having Harrison Ford digitally immortalized in this game paves the way for sequels focused exclusively on video games. And so be it, without any more insistence on the cinema.