Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is better than it has any right to be. There's plenty to love in this recent Indy game, but level design might just be its crown jewel: Great Circle is brimming with cleverly crafted environments, all of which include deep secrets, hidden paths, and unique, grounded architectural marvels.
Players will get a heavy dose of this stellar level design shortly after Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's prologue, when they are carried away to Vatican City. This is the first open-ended area of the game, introducing its broad and multifaceted environment design. Ancient catacombs, climbable structures, covert rooftops, and underground fighting rings are just a few promising attractions in this recreated European city, making it a joy to explore. The presentation of such an iconic real-world location is mirrored only by the likes of the Assassin's Creed franchise, specifically the Ezio-led AC games, which take players across Italy, allowing them to dig into a number of different historical settings.
Hogwarts Legacy’s Spiders and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s Snakes Share an Overindulgence
Hogwarts Legacy and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle mirror one another when it comes to how prolific their spiders and snakes are.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Is a Continuation of Assassin's Creed's Open-World Italy
Why Assassin's Creed 2 and Assassin's Creed Brotherhood Have Such Great Level Design
Before morphing into an expansive open-world franchise akin to the likes of The Witcher 3, Assassin's Creed's environments were far denser. It would be inaccurate to call a game like Assassin's Creed 2 "small," of course, but its size and scope were more defined by verticality and tightly layered facets within meticulously detailed cities; AC2 lacks the vast, sprawling natural landscapes of a game like Assassin's Creed Valhalla.
The scenic English countryside has its benefits, as do the endless, enchanting deserts of Egypt, but there's a certain magic to the granularly designed cities of older Assassin's Creed games that's hard to replicate. There's a real sense of history and mystery in these locales, as the games hide an inherent promise of powerful secrets around every corner. And oftentimes, games like AC2 and AC Brotherhood deliver on this promise. Assassin's Creed may have shifted away from this design philosophy, but it lives on in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's Italy Is Highly Reminiscent of Classic Assassin's Creed
Many of the aforementioned strengths of Assassin's Creed's Italian cities are reflected by the open-world Rome of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Great Circle's looping, multilayered level design often feels like an even more condensed version of AC2's Florence or, naturally, AC Brotherhood's Rome: it's filled with powerful secrets, both large and small, and its vertical exploration allows for unconventional traversal. Traipsing through ancient catacombs below the city's surface feels an awful lot like spelunking in Assassin's Tombs, and searching for long-forgotten secrets hidden in plain sight is more than a little reminiscent of Eagle Vision clue-hunting.
Indiana Jones may not be quite as acrobatic or athletic as Ezio, but he does engage in a fair bit of climbing, shimmying, and creeping around rooftops in Great Circle, which can feel like another blast from the past for Assassin's Creed 2 fans.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Is an Evolution of Old-School Assassin's Creed, Not an Imitation
Make no mistake, Great Circle doesn't have much in common with Assassin's Creed from a gameplay or structural perspective. Rather, it's its ambitious and faithful recreation of historical settings, with a healthy dose of creative liberty, that hearkens back to Ubisoft's earlier action-adventure titles. Verisimilitude is something that Great Circle shares with Assassin's Creed 2 (many in-game locations look almost identical to their real-world counterparts, in both games), but while AC2, AC Brotherhood, and even AC Revelations subvert this verisimilitude through classic adventure game tropes, Great Circle urges players to focus on it, putting them in the shoes of an archaeologist rather than a globe-trotting assassin.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 87 /100 Critics Rec: 94%
- Released
- December 9, 2024
- ESRB
- T For Teen // Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Mild Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
- MachineGames
- Publisher(s)
- Bethesda
- Engine
- id Tech 7
- Franchise
- Indiana Jones
- Number of Players
- 1
WHERE TO PLAY
Uncover one of history’s greatest mysteries in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, a first-person, single-player adventure set between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade. The year is 1937, sinister forces are scouring the globe for the secret to an ancient power connected to the Great Circle, and only one person can stop them - Indiana Jones™. You’ll become the legendary archaeologist in this cinematic action-adventure game from MachineGames, the award-winning studio behind the recent Wolfenstein series, and executive produced by Hall of Fame game designer Todd Howard.
YOU ARE INDIANA JONES
Live the adventure as Indy in a thrilling story full of exploration, immersive action, and intriguing puzzles. As the brilliant archaeologist – famed for his keen intellect, cunning resourcefulness, and trademark humor – you will travel the world in a race against enemy forces to discover the secrets to one of the greatest mysteries of all time.
A WORLD OF MYSTERY AWAITS
Travel from the halls of Marshall College to the heart of the Vatican, the pyramids of Egypt, the sunken temples of Sukhothai, and beyond. When a break-in in the dead of night ends in a confrontation with a mysterious colossal man, you must set out to discover the world-shattering secret behind the theft of a seemingly unimportant artifact. Forging new alliances and facing familiar enemies, you’ll engage with intriguing characters, use guile and wits to solve ancient riddles, and survive intense set-pieces.
WHIP-CRACKING ACTION
Indiana’s trademark whip remains at the heart of his gear and can be used to distract, disarm, and attack enemies. But the whip isn’t just a weapon, it’s Indy’s most valuable tool for navigating the environment. Swing over unsuspecting patrols and scale walls as you make your way through a striking world. Combine stealth infiltration, melee combat, and gunplay to combat the enemy threat and unravel the mystery.
THE SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY
Venture through a dynamic mix of linear, narrative-driven gameplay and open-area maps. Indulge your inner explorer and unearth a world of fascinating secrets, deadly traps,and fiendish puzzles, where anything could potentially hide the next piece of the mystery – or snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- Unknown
- PC Release Date
- December 9, 2024
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- December 9, 2024
- PS5 Release Date
- April 17, 2025
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- How Long To Beat
- 14 Hours
- X|S Optimized
- Yes
- File Size Xbox Series
- 134 GB (December 2024)
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
