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Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. As far as addendums to silver screen dynasties go, you've likely heard better. The Great Circle doesn't have the same oomph as The Temple of Doom, The Last Crusade, or even The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. But when it comes to MachineGames and Bethesda's long-awaited video game adaptation, even a whimsical strapline was a lot more information than we had before the latest Xbox Developer Direct.
More than that, though, we got to see the upcoming first-person single-player adventure game in motion, and, wow, does it look good. I say this as an unabashed Indy fan who spent their formative years watching the original Raiders of the Lost Ark trilogy over and over and over again, but I was totally taken by all three minutes and six seconds of the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle gameplay trailer – so much so, that I already reckon it's the best adaptation of the whip-lashing looter's long lineage in over 30 years.
Whip it good
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Visually, the Great Circle looks stunning. With MachineGames at the helm, that was likely never in doubt – having risen to prominence when it revived the Wolfenstein series in 2014, the studio launched Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus three years later, both of which also looked great – but the artefact-laden museums, leafy jungle paths, and vacuous tombs in the trailer, all viewed through Indy's eyes, looked amazing. We saw thoughtful environmental puzzles, breakneck traversal, and the same brutal melee and weapon-driven Nazi-killing combat MachineGames is renowned for.
More than looks, though, the Great Circle sounds fantastic. It's easy to take sound design for granted at times, especially when modern games are so aesthetically pleasing. But the truth of the matter is, sound can elevate the experience just as much as any lighting effect or visual marvel. The crack of Indy's whip is so satisfying, for example, as are the creaking wooden cogs and crunching stone doors that feature around the 1:15 mark in the trailer. At one stage, Indy reaches into a dark hole deep inside a cave, and when a giant bug of some description crawls up his arm, you can hear each of the insect's legs scuttling up the sleeve of his leather jacket. The metal crack followed by the ignition rush of his Zippo lighter is tangible, and the crickets that purr as we're shown The Sphinx made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
Through all of this, it feels like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle understands the essence of its source material, leaning into the sense of adventure that brought this character to life 40-odd years ago, and has retained his place as a household name ever since. The likes of Tomb Raider and Uncharted have long aped the formula with great success, but it feels like the Great Circle stands to finally do the wise-cracking, crypt-plundering protagonist justice.
His Lego ventures aside, I'd argue that there hasn't been a decent Indiana Jones game since the 1989 Temple of Doom MS-DOS incarnation, which was itself a desktop port of Atari's 1985 arcade game. Despite its crude eight-directional controls and a plot that barely reflected any of its cinematic inspiration, Temple of Doom had some of the most satisfying platforming mechanics of its time. I played on the Atari ST in the early '90s, and can still recall the joy of lashing Indy's whip at bats, snakes and ghouls, throwing myself over chasms, and battering down mine shafts in the back of a cart less reliable than a wonky shopping trolley.
Lest I digress further, I suppose my point here is: yes, a decent Indiana Jones game has been a long time coming, and yes, we've known about this one for some time, but none of this matters until we're shown something that works. Having been announced way back in January 2021, Bethesda, MachineGames and Lucasfilm Games were always going to go big with our first proper glimpse here, but even still, the little we've seen so far has really whet the palette for more. It's early days yet, but the Great Circle looks on course to put Indy back on top – be that while sneaking around silent tombs, letting his silver tongue get him out of (or land him in) trouble, shooting planes out of the sky, and/or hopping between the wings of airborne aircraft.
Combine all of this with MachineGames' history with video games that portray Nazi slaughter, and, surely, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is on the right track. Now boasting a tentative "2024" release window, more information on this one can't come soon enough.
