Raiders of the Lost Ark — the first Indiana Jones movie — opens with an iconic scene where the archeologist Indiana Jones is exploring a cave in search of a treasured artifact. After removing the artifact, a giant trap is activated and he must run away from a 12-foot boulder down the corridor. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle also opens with this scene — and amazingly — pulls it off well. From there, the game — set between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade — succeeds at creating an engaging Indiana Jones story.
The plot of the game is a good Indiana Jones story, and it would likely be just as successful if it was a film. At the center of the story is a fascist plot to uncover a mythical power that is related to a series of mysterious sites guarded by a forgotten group of giants. Without giving away plot beats, it involves a Vatican mystery and ties to ancient societies. You eventually meet a reporter, Gina Lombardi, who is alongside you for most of the game. She’s there primarily for narrative reasons, but she has an interesting backstory and is well-written and performed. The characters and mystery are strong and it wasn’t long before I was invested in the story.
The game is told via a first-person action perspective so you spend your time being Indiana Jones. It’s fairly convincing and you make use of his iconic whip while engaging in a lot of fisticuffs. The game encourages you to pick up all manner of objects lying around the world, so it wasn’t long before I was bashing fascists with brooms and cast-iron skillets. The game involves a lot of sneaking around, either by staying out of sight of the fascists or donning various outfits to blend in with the surroundings. In my playthrough, the stealth aspect felt required. Any time I tried a combat-first approach, I was quickly overrun by the enemies. The combat doesn’t feel great, Indiana Jones tires quickly (the game has a stamina bar), but that feels intentional because Dr. Jones isn’t a combatant at heart.
For me, the game felt pretty reminiscent of Uncharted, albeit with more emphasis on stealth and puzzles. Throughout the story there are a lot of puzzles to solve and secrets to uncover. While I didn’t engage in most of the side quests, they are there if you want. For the puzzles, they were mostly environmental in nature. You’ll need to solve various riddles and move objects around to unlock chambers. I found that the story progressed at a pretty good pace, although I did feel I got bogged down during some of the open world portions. A few areas made progression unclear, and I occasionally had to wander until a contextual prompt appeared indicating what I had to do. Along with that, there were a few parts where there were frustrating jumps that I found pretty difficult to make with the first person perspective. Neither were enough to take me out of the story completely, but there certainly were a few frustrating parts.
I played on a PlayStation 5 and the game looked stunning. There is a lot of attention to detail in the world. The character model used for Indiana Jones is a convincing recreation of Harrison Ford and the voice work is almost uncanny how well it mimics Ford’s performance. There were times where if I squinted enough, I’d think it was a lost Indiana Jones film from the 1980s.
Overall, I’d recommend giving Indiana Jones and the Great Circle a try. It’s a fun adventure story that earns its place in the Indiana Jones canon. I’d wager it’s probably the best Indiana Jones game ever made and is definitely the best Indiana Jones story outside of the original three movies.