• Developer – MachineGames
• Publisher – Bethesda
• Initial Release Date – December 9th, 2024 (Premium early access December 6^th)
• Available on – Xbox Series X/S & Windows PC Timed Exclusive (PS5/PS5 Pro coming in Spring 2025)
• Reviewed on – PC
• PC Hardware – Windows 11, Nvidia RTX 4080, Intel i9-12900k, 32GB RAM

It has been about 42 years since the very first Indiana Jones game came out. Yep, you read that right; Raiders of the Lost Ark released on the Atari 2600 in 1982, about a year after the theatrical release of the movie, and it would be a slight understatement to say that gaming has evolved since then. I can’t accurately say how many times I have watched the original trilogy of Indy films, and I consider them among my favorite movies of all time, but with the recent mediocre-at-best release of the newest Indy movie, Dial of Destiny, I had high but reserved hopes for the Great Circle.

After putting most of my free time (and a fat chunk of cash) into it since the early access release on December 6th, I am very happy to report that those expectations were absolutely blown out of the water. I don’t want to get too ahead of myself in the first two paragraphs of my review, but I have not been as immersed in the world and setting of a game since Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2018. That is not meant as a direct comparison between them, the two games are very different, but from the first few moments on, I have been wholeheartedly engrossed in the nostalgia-inducing adventure MachineGames has created.

Visuals and performance

The Great Circle opens with easily the most cinematic and well-done tutorial I have seen in recent years, as you step into the shoes of Indy in a shot for shot recreation of the opening to Raiders of the Lost Ark. The attention to detail put forth is incredible; it’s all there, right down to the god damned tarantulas, and it is enhanced greatly by the graphical showcase on display. MachineGames utilized the Motor engine, based off the ID Tech 7 engine which was previously seen in 2020’s Doom Eternal, and it has seen some massive upgrades since then. After spending a few moments playing with graphical settings and basically cranking everything to the max, I was honestly a little bit shocked to see my frame rate at 144 FPS with V-sync enabled, and rock solid too. I ended up reducing my frame rate to a max of 77 after noticing some physics bugs with the fire on torches in game at the higher frame rate, but prior to that I was unable to get the game to drop below 144 FPS according to my FPS counter no matter what I did.

Initially, I had DLSS set to quality mode and frame gen enabled, but I noticed some stuttering with frame gen turned on even though my FPS counter was still showing a locked 144, but after disabling both DLSS and frame gen, the stuttering disappeared, and my frame rate was still locked at 144 FPS. This is easily the best optimized AAA release have seen in a very long time, particularly on PC. MachineGames also dropped the first update for the game on December 8th which added in fully path traced lighting, which I obviously immediately enabled as the massive graphics whore that I am.

When I maxed out path tracing, my frame rate finally dipped below 144/77 to around 72 with DLSS enabled and frame gen disabled. However, again despite the frame counter remaining steady, gameplay felt a little stuttery and not as smooth as it had been before. Of course, this is reasonable given that path tracing is a bit of an experimental technology at the moment, and I don’t have an RTX 4090, but I decided to give frame gen another shot and my frame rate jumped to around 115 and the stuttery gameplay issues also disappeared. Cutscene performance took a bit of a dip though, and after the path tracing update came out my cutscenes were maxed out at 60fps with some noticeable stuttering and frame dips, sometimes into the 40’s. I’m not sure why this happens as the actual gameplay looks just as good if not better than the cutscenes.

Global illumination in particular (both pre and post path tracing update) is extremely well done with the lighting feeling very natural and realistic in every environment. Environments are heavily varied with jumps from the jungle in the intro segment to Marshall College in Connecticut, Vatican City in Rome, the pyramids in Giza and more. Nighttime and the darker environments like the tombs and spooky catacombs you delve into really stand out, as light from your torch or lighter bounces around realistically. The fog, although not fully simulated like some recent games (Black Myth Wukong for example), looks very good as well, and I stopped in my tracks while trying to solve a puzzle just to stop and look at the fog flowing off of a staircase as it was hit by light from above. Snow, dirt and sand effects are also all nicely simulated.

It’s a little difficult to put into words how good the game looks and the level of attention to detail that MachineGames went to. Every nook and cranny of the game looks exceptional and realistic. The world really feels lived in; you may come across areas of buildings that are under construction, workers trying to fix lights, archeological excavations, nuns and priests thumbing through books in the Vatican libraries, and the list just continues on in the other locations you visit. It is some of the best level and world design I’ve seen in a very long time. I spent about an hour wandering around Vatican city just looking at the paintings, architecture and statues.

Character models also look great, Indy looks basically identical to young Harrison Ford, character faces wrinkle realistically as they talk in cutscenes, muscles and veins in their necks move realistically as they speak and facial expressions are subtle in some moments and needfully over the top in others, just like in the movies. The facial capture for Indy, I believe performed by his voice actor Troy Baker, perfectly nails his charisma from the original movies. There have been several moments in cutscenes where Indy has a light bulb moment and flashes his signature grin that have gotten a hearty chortle from me. The way cutscenes are framed and shot also add to the cinematic appeal with a transition from first person during gameplay to third person in cutscenes. They are framed in ways that are very reminiscent of the films and it is easy to get pulled in while watching.

Another little detail I have noticed is clothing seems to be fully simulated on most of the characters. For example, Indy’s classic leather jacket is an actual physical object; not just a mesh glued on top of his model with some cloth physics at the bottom. The entire jacket moves and bounces around like a jacket would in real life. In one scene Indy is knocked down onto his back, and his jacket shrinks in and deforms a bit with gravity. It isn’t perfect, and definitely still looks “gamey” at times, but it’s a cool evolution of clothing in games. The closest I have seen would be Arthur’s jacket in RDR2, but this also applies to the pants and undershirt for Indy, and at least some of the other characters seem to have fully simulated clothing as well. It’s a neat effect that adds a nice little touch of realism. This is all done in gameplay in addition to cutscenes too, as you can see his clothes moving during the third person moments like climbing, and you can see the layering effect of his jacket on his arms in first person as you inspect objects or pick something up. I have noticed that some outfits do not have full cloth simulation though, possibly just due to clipping issues or something similar. Fluid physics and simulation are also solid, with a few instances of pouring wine from a bottle that looks especially nice (though I believe it may be pre rendered or baked in and not actually simulated, but still in game and not in a cutscene).

On the very limited downside of the visuals, there is a bit of pop in that is noticeable on distant foliage and shadows in some locations. There have been a few moments where I have noticed some blurry or low resolution textures during close up shots in cutscenes which were a little jarring given how good the game looks otherwise and I have not noticed these issues during actual gameplay. There were also some gaps and black lines in between a few textures here and there, but nothing major in terms of visual bugs. Pop in was particularly bad in one segment about midway through the game where items inside a destroyed building popped in and out of existence just a few feet in front of me. Quite the opposite really, as I’ve spent a lot of time just looking at the details on each of the weapons I’ve picked up so far, in particular Indy’s signature revolver.

Audio and sound design

Speaking of Indy’s revolver, the sound design and attention to detail with regard to sound that MachineGames have included are very impressive. When you draw his revolver, Indy pulls the hammer back with a satisfying, meaty click, and similarly when you holster the gun, he de-cocks the hammer, a detail I have never seen in another game except for RDR2. It is an interesting detail though, as his Smith & Wesson Model 1917 MKII revolver from the films is double action and would not require the hammer to be pulled back before firing, but it’s a neat little addition that gives it just a bit more weight and realism.

This is a small part of a much larger soundscape too, as just about every aspect of the sound design in the game goes that far in depth. For example, one of the levels has some pipes in one section that are carrying water. I noticed while standing still next to them that I could hear the faint sound of water trickling through. Not something grandiose or groundbreaking but being that I had just loaded back into the game after taking a break and spawned in next to them in an otherwise quiet area, it was something that really stood out as extra effort put forth to bring the world to life. The positional audio, echo and reverb effects are also top notch, with character voices fading as you move away from them, dialogue and other sounds echoing through large open chambers, the sound of rain changing from normal downpour to pelting off of a roof as you walk under a patio, etc. I never took notice of these kinds of details in the Wolfenstein games if they were present, so I was not really expecting them here either and I was pleasantly surprised with these aspects of the audio.

All this talk about the sound effects and I haven’t even touched on the voice acting, and hot damn, is it good. Troy Baker has delivered an incredible performance as Indiana, and while it isn’t perfectly spot on and in my opinion can be a little too flat sounding at times when you expect a little more emotion, it is so close to young Harrison Ford most of the time that you could easily close your eyes and have a hard time telling them apart. The dialogue in the intro sequence for example, pulled straight from Raiders of the Lost Ark, is nearly perfect in his delivery. If I had not known it was Baker voicing Indy, I could have been convinced that it was Ford, or some kind of AI recreation of his voice. He even manages to nail down some of the characteristic grunts and groans Indy makes when swinging on his whip, fighting or otherwise exerting himself. Again, it’s just more icing on the detail cake.

And that is not to say that the other voice actors are bad either, every single character I’ve interacted with so far has been exceptionally voiced, particularly the main villain, Emmerich Voss, who has some intense creep factor and reminds me heavily of Major Arnold Toht from Raiders. Every time he is on screen, he makes my skin crawl. The rest of the audio is classic Indiana Jones, with melee combat taking the punching sounds from the movies, and melee weapons having some of the nastiest sounding thwacks and thuds I’ve experienced in a game to date. Firearms also have a lot of punch to them, which is nothing new for MachineGames coming from the Wolfenstein series. Even the sound effect of operating the bolt action on the K98 rifles you can pick up after whooping some Nazi ass is satisfying and crisp.

Gameplay, story and everything else

The Great Circle takes place between Raiders and the Last Crusade movies in the year 1936 and of course sees Indy fighting Nazis (duh) and Italian fascists. The focus of the story is retrieving an artifact that is stolen early on from Marshall College, eventually introducing Indy to a much greater mystery involving The Great Circle (hence the name) which is a circle around the globe that crosses several mysterious and important archeological sites. Along the way, Indy teams up with several friends, both new and old, and faces off against Emmerich Voss, a Nazi occultist. I won’t go into much more detail to avoid spoiling anything because I do think the story is fun and engaging, but you end up hopping around the world to different locations that offer semi open world maps to explore, the first being Vatican City in Rome.

When I first began exploring after completing the tutorial and first intro missions, I was very surprised with just how much there was to do. The maps are large and dense with a lot of different locations to explore and side content to complete. Some of it is a bit fetch quest-y and has you collecting medicine bottles to turn in for rewards or some other collectibles, but there are some very meaty side missions as well, and some of them honestly feel like main story content despite being entirely optional. There have been a few times I’ve hopped back into the game and forgotten I was even doing a side mission because of how they feel and play out. Coming from Wolfenstein, which does have some side content though not to this degree, I was both impressed and surprised with what MachineGames came up with here. I haven’t completed the entire main story yet (damn you, Path of Exile 2) but I am greatly enjoying it so far, and it really feels true to the formula of the franchise.

From a gameplay perspective, the Great Circle is much more exploration heavy than I expected. A lot of the time you spend in the game will be exploring locations, searching for loot and artifacts, and completing puzzles. There is also a greater focus on stealth than I expected, and while Indy is certainly capable in combat, you can easily get overwhelmed quickly when facing several foes in melee combat, or if you alert an outpost or base and end up in a gun fight. Melee weapons have limited durability and will break after a few hits, which is usually enough to take out an enemy or two in combat, and usually enough to stealth takedown two enemies, depending on what weapon you find. Weapons are contextual and found in the environment, for example you may come across sledgehammers and pick axes in a dig site, but if you’re snooping around a Nazi barracks, you may only find a frying pan or a hair brush, which definitely makes for some hilarious take downs. You can of course always resort to your fists as well, and melee combat is balanced with a stamina bar that depletes as you swing, dodge, block and parry attacks. Enemy reactions are solid, and impacts feel very good, with visual damage present on enemy faces like bruises and cuts after you bonk ‘em on the noggin. As I mentioned in the sound design section, melee sound effects are solid with the classic punching sound effects from the movies, and melee weapons crunching, thumping and bonging off fascist skulls. Smacking someone with a frying pan and hearing a nice “BONG” is perfect.

As for gunplay, it feels excellent, as you would expect from the developers of Wolfenstein. The guns themselves are weighty and have great feedback, my personal favorite being the revolver, with satisfying recoil, sound effects and enemy reactions. Playing on normal difficulty, one to two shots from the revolver is enough to kill an enemy depending on range from the target and where they are hit, and the same goes for rifles. SMGs are a little bit less damaging and can take 4-5 shots, or more if you’re far away. All in all, it feels great with low time to kill. I do wish there were more options to carry guns with you though, as you can only carry Indy’s revolver permanently unless you unlock an outfit that comes with a firearm, but I’ll get more into that in a moment. I would love to be able to sling a rifle on my back so I can climb up a ladder and snipe some enemies from afar, but Indy just throws it down, apparently suffering from a case of “Kay Vess-itis”. The same goes for using items in your inventory, or using your whip to traverse the environment, he just dumps whatever weapon you have in your hands and you have to pick it back up when you’re done. This could be operator error which I will admit to, as I once fast traveled in the game (you can fast travel from signposts scattered around the maps) while holding a rifle and spawned in with it visible on his back in his shadow, but I couldn’t figure out how to do this manually and it has not happened since.

Regarding your inventory, you have access to Indy’s satchel, which can hold bandages, artifacts and quest items that you pick up, repair kits (which I cannot figure out how to use and the game doesn’t explain how to use that I have seen) and of course, adventure snacks. Every rough and tumble adventurer knows that you can’t operate on a rumbly tummy, so Indy knows to grab every cookie, bagel, donut, persimmon or apple that he comes across. Food acts as a buffing mechanism and allows you to give yourself extra health and stamina. There are plenty of snacks lying around the world of the Great Circle, so munch away.

There is also a disguise system, and you always have access to Indy’s regular adventure outfit, which you can change from the options menu if you have any DLC outfits. There appear to be two disguises per level that I have come across for most levels, with one normally being given to you automatically such as the Vatican level, and others you will have to explore and find yourself. Finding an enemy outfit is very useful, as it allows you to explore bases and outposts without worrying about needing to massacre another dozen Nazis, but you can still be spotted by officers who will see through your disguise and call an alarm, so feel free to bash their brains in when you see them.

Stealth plays a big role, and it feels solid most of the time. Sticking to the shadows will decrease the ability of enemies to see you, and there are plenty of boxes, barrels and other crap to hide behind. Enemies tend to stick to certain patrols which allows you to wait for an opportunity to surprise attack them, and you can pick up and move bodies as well to maintain your cover. I will say, after I managed to knock out a few dudes who had guns, I just took their guns and started blasting everyone in sight and it made it feel almost too easy, as the enemy AI didn’t really know what to do when I had a gun. Melee enemies just run at you and are easily picked off, or they will try and throw rocks or sometimes their own weapons at you if you are standing on a platform they can’t get to, but they are easily dealt with if you have a gun.

Ranged enemies present a little more of a challenge, but still, if you have an SMG or rifle, you can easily mow down four or five guards and then just take their guns. They don’t seem to run for cover much either and opt for standing in the open. In one level, I grabbed a shotgun from one enemy I stealth killed, then blasted another one and stood behind a pillar waiting for his buddies to come in. They neatly filed into the room, and I blasted each of them until I ran out of ammo, then picked up one of their dropped guns and repeated until there was a huge pile of bodies in the doorway. It was a bit silly.

Firearm ammo is very limited however, as the only guns you can reload are your revolver (which is tied to Indy’s default outfit and only available when wearing that outfit) or another sidearm that may come with other outfits you’ve discovered. Each outfit seems to have some kind of weapon though, usually melee oriented, so you are never fully disarmed unless that item breaks. And, when you run out of ammo, you can even use your gun as a melee weapon. This is something I haven’t seen in another game either; Indy will physically flip the gun around in his hands so he’s using the buttstock or handle as a weapon, and you can then proceed to beat the ever-loving shit out of some fascist scumbags with your blicky. Until it breaks, because you can also break your guns. Still, it offers you an option to remain somewhat stealthy when armed with a firearm.

The gameplay loop is solid, satisfying to me and boils down to explore, sneak, fight, loot, maybe solve a puzzle, repeat. So far, I am enjoying it, but I can see how it could get a little repetitive after a while for some. I don’t expect the game to take me much longer to complete though, so I don’t think it will be an issue. This does not seem to be a 60+ hour long slog fest of a game. The varied environments and story set pieces are keeping things fresh for me and the developers have done a great job of breaking up the action with exploration and story moments.

Final thoughts

I’ve said quite a bit here, and it is overwhelmingly positive. I have had very few issues with the game from a performance perspective, and I have only experienced one crash, though I have heard some reports from other players that they are experiencing a lot of crashes after the December 8^th pre-release patch. In my case, I had just enabled path tracing and I was walking from a very bright and sunny environment into a dark tent. The game locked up, then my entire screen turned black and I had to hard boot my PC. It was a little scary and I thought I had fried my GPU for a moment, but everything came back without issue after a restart, and this has not occurred since.

One complaint I have about the visuals, or maybe the graphics settings I should say, is there is no option to disable lens flares in the game. I said this in my Outlaws review as well, but our eyes are not camera lenses, and we should not be seeing lens flares in games, especially when playing from the first-person perspective through the eyes of our character who also doesn’t have camera lenses for eyes. If the art team wants to include them for artistic purposes, that’s fine, but give us the option to disable them if we want to. Another complaint I have is the bloom effects are just a little bit too strong, and there is no option to turn them down or off, and it can cause some details to be washed out in brighter environments.

Gameplay wise, I think the AI could use a little bit of tuning. The enemies are a tad bit dumb and have zero self-preservation. You can also do a stealth take down on one baddie, crack his skull with a pipe and have his body fall two feet behind his friend and the other guy won’t notice a thing. It’s a little bit silly at times, but ultimately it doesn’t really detract from the game too much because of what this game is. It has some light immersive sim elements, but it is ultimately an exploration and cinematic oriented experience.

And that’s about it for my negative takeaways. I really don’t have much to complain about here, except for maybe the Xbox/PC exclusivity deal since I really wanted to play this one on the big screen and test out the PS5 Pro, but that’s just me, and I have really enjoyed the eye candy playing on PC too. The Great Circle is an awesome action/adventure game with a lot of great set piece moments, fun combat, stunning visuals, interesting exploration and puzzles, an engaging story and fleshed-out side content. This is easily the best entry in the Indiana Jones franchise since the original trilogy of movies, and if you are an Indy fan like me, or you just want to play a good single player adventure game, I highly recommend the Great Circle.

9.5/10

All images courtesy of Bad Habit Gaming and MachineGames. All screenshots featured are captured live during gameplay. This review is based on a paid retail copy.