Indiana Jones and the Great Circle ($69.99 on PC and Xbox Series X/S) has all the hallmarks of the iconic films that preceded it. Not the last two duds, mind you, but the original trilogy. Developer MachineGames (owned by Bethesda Softworks) has deftly captured the spirit of those iconic movies, which is an impressive feat in and of itself. That's not to say the Great Circle isn't without its flaws. The game's many quest-rich hub areas are ambitious in design, but they hinder the cinematic pacing by transforming the globetrotting adventure into errand work. Likewise, an overreliance on stealth also stymies the cinematic energy. Still, if you’re a fan of the franchise, the game delivers a healthy dose of the Indy goodness you probably missed from the latest films.

What Is Indiana Jones and the Great Circle About?

Indiana Jones' alma mater, Marshall College, is ransacked. A mysterious figure makes off with an artifact, leaving a vague hint of the Vatican’s involvement in his wake. A pulp adventure ensues that takes Indy around the world, including Rome's catacombs, Giza's arid sands, and Thailand's jungles.

Without spoiling too much, I like how the game ties seemingly disparate locales and relics to the Judeo-Christian mythos and the idea of an ancient, globe-spanning advanced civilization. It also feels quite topical, considering the growing interest in antediluvian civilizations popularized by Graham Hancock.

(Credit: Bethesda Softworks/PCMag)

Troy Baker’s voice work as Indiana Jones is excellent. In fact, everyone, from the villainous Nazi Emmerich Voss (Marios Gavrilis) to the mysterious Locus (the late Tony Todd), delivers superb performances. The cinematography during story sequences is equally fantastic, resembling scenes from the original films.

Though most Indiana Jones films are set during the onset of World War II, they don’t depict much of the war or the events leading up to it. The Great Circle pits Indy against not only the Nazis but also Italian, Japanese, and Thai fascists. It also showcases how the propaganda affected everyday people, which is especially fascinating.

Exploration, Navigation...and Errands

The Great Circle's scope is genuinely impressive. Every major area is a sizable zone to explore, with many side quests to undertake, landmarks to see, and secrets to discover. You can even take photographs, as indicated by a small camera icon in the corner of the screen. This offers additional insight into the subject. You can also acquire logs and serial comics that breathe life into the world. Found training manuals improve Indy's health, stamina, and proficiencies. There are even local food items to swipe for temporary health boosts. It all feels thoughtful and fun.

The game gives you a surprising amount of agency, letting you figure out how to get from point A to point B at your own pace. In fact, this is the Great Circle’s greatest strength. You can whip out your journal any time to see your objectives, but multiple route options exist. The most direct path is generally the most conflict-heavy route. However, platforming and stealth are perfectly viable options, so it pays to go off the beaten path and explore. This on-the-fly improvisation is a terrific gameplay element.

You'll raid many tombs, too. As a result, expect plenty of shimmying, jumping, and grappling with your lasso. Indy's whip is great for swinging across chasms and rappelling up walls. The first-person perspective doesn't interfere much with how you explore the world—except for platforming. Lining up jumps can be an annoyance due to the perspective. The whip's grapple detection is finicky, too, often forcing you to inch to the very edge of a platform before the game gives you the whip prompt.

(Credit: Bethesda Softworks/PCMag)

The Great Circle usually requires you to run some errands for your local assistant before you can advance the story. I appreciate that these quests encourage you to engage with the game’s systems, but a degree of tedium comes from being required to do so. I want to explore because I desire to, not because the game tells me I have to.

In Giza, for example, you must collect valuable stela for the Museum of Cairo while you wait for your work documents to arrive (essential for progressing to the next story segment). Unfortunately, the documents aren't used for anything related to the story. In fact, you sneak into the next area anyway, making the quest feel like padding rather than meaningful progress. Granted, these tasks aren’t nearly as tedious as the artifact hunt at the end of Metroid Prime, but they slow the pace considerably. This puts the gameplay at odds with the brisk, energetic escalation presented in the story scenes.

The game has some genuinely fantastic set pieces where you are in tight, scripted scenarios with lots of action and platforming to keep the energy and pace moving. These spectacles are highlights, bookending each chapter. Some take you to a literal warzone, while others are fun diversions that spice up the gameplay. Fending off scorpions while neck-deep in the sand might sound like a bizarre thing to appreciate, but it was a fresh mini-game that polished off the demanding puzzle and boss gauntlet that preceded it. The Tomb Raider and Uncharted series earned acclaim thanks to spectacular set pieces like these, and I would have loved to see more of them sprinkled throughout The Great Circle.

(Credit: Bethesda Softworks/PCMag)

Fisticuffs, Gunplay, and Stealth

Indy serves up knuckle sandwiches via a satisfying and simple melee system. You can swing his right or left hands individually, unleash a combo, block incoming attacks, and retaliate with snappy counters. You can also charge a haymaker to break a defensive foe’s posture.

Melee weapons (batons, bottles, pipes, and other objects) supplement your assault, dealing significantly more damage than your fists. However, they break after repeated use. It all works well and feels great. That is until you get jumped by a mob or someone pulls out a gun. Indiana Jones can throw down, but he's a glass cannon. Sometimes, it's safer to avoid conflict rather than engage in fisticuffs.

You have gunplay to fall back on, but it has dangers. Indy is usually armed with a revolver you can whip out to make short work of an enemy. The problem? Every foe in the area is alerted when it goes off, essentially forcing you to battle a massive mob of violent, heavily armed ideologues. Indy also takes his sweet time reloading each chamber in his revolver, meaning you’re far more likely to get caught with your pants down if you shoot wantonly. Combat becomes less viable as you advance the story and start fighting tougher, more heavily armed enemies.

Stealth is not only an option, it's usually the best option to advance through an area. The Great Circle doesn't do anything particularly new or unique with its stealth elements. If you’ve played a Hitman or Metal Gear Solid game, you know the drill: Stay out of an enemy’s line of sight. If they spot you, indicators over their heads fill up. Once the bars reach a certain point, they’ll start moving from their route to investigate the environment. Sometimes the game spice things up by adding a dog to the patrol, which can detect errant sounds much better than humans. The open-ended design of most areas gives you plenty of stealth avenues, so there is usually some means of sneaking around obstacles.

(Credit: Bethesda Softworks/PCMag)

Some boss fights take too long to end, even after you discover their gimmick. One boss, without spoiling too much, requires that you sneak around him to avoid detection and bop him when he's unaware. I lost count of how many times I had to do this before he finally went down, but the fight lasted ten minutes.

Can Your PC Run Indiana Jones and the Great Circle?

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a demanding PC game. The minimum system requirements are an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 or Intel Core i7-10700K CPU, AMD Radeon RX 6600 or Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super GPU, and 16GB of RAM. The game also requires an SSD for storage. Recommended and Ultra settings require an even more powerful rig. For more details, check out our system specs breakdown.

Our test PC, outfitted with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 GPU, and 16GB of RAM, let us run the game at low settings. Admittedly, its performance at low settings was excellent. The Great Circle ran at 1080p at more than 70 frames per second, with only the occasional hitch at select loading points on the map. Otherwise, there were no real performance issues of note.

Increasing the resolution or adjusting graphical settings above low tanked the frame rate. This is a real shame because the models, animation, and overall presentation are superb, and we would have loved to enjoy the game at higher fidelity.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is not yet Steam Deck verified or playable, but we’ll update you when more information becomes available. You can play with either a controller or a keyboard/mouse combo.

Verdict: The Great Circle Is a Fun, Nostalgic Romp

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle feels like a lost chapter from the franchise’s heyday, a testament to how faithfully MachineGames adapted the source material. The Great Circle presents a fascinating and engrossing new story with all of the cinematic twists and thrills you would expect from the movies. The gameplay is good, but pacing issues and grounded combat mechanics keep it from achieving the heights of contemporary action-adventure and stealth games. That said, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a blast from the past that tickled my nostalgia bone in ways that surprised and delighted me, making its drawbacks easy to look past.