This article contains MINOR SPOILERS for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's DLC.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a true globe-trotting adventure, taking players from Connecticut to the Vatican to Gizeh to Antarctica to Shanghai to Sukhothai, and finally Iraq. Each and every locale in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle looks suitably distinct, its immersive sim-like gameplay mechanics help to make them feel like real living and breathing places, and it's undoubtedly MachineGames' best-looking project to date.
The recently released The Order of Giants DLC is set just before Indy leaves the Vatican in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's main story, and it sees the hero investigating a series of Nephilim Order tombs hidden underneath Rome. Players are given a handful of new areas to explore in the DLC, and they're just as beautiful and vibrant as fans would expect, so much so that I wish there were more reasons for me to stay in this world a little longer.
Indiana Jones: The Order of Giants Offers a New Side of Rome to Explore
Though it's located at the heart of Rome, Vatican City is its own independent city-state, and is home to its own assortment of distinct historical buildings and architecture. So, while Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's The Order of Giants DLC also takes place in Rome, it's able to show the location in a new light, letting players explore some of the city outside the Vatican.
Most of Indiana Jones: The Order of Giants is spent exploring the Cloaca Maxima, a sprawling underground network of sewer tunnels that may not look as pretty as the Vatican's marbled streets or Gizeh's magnificent sand-covered monuments, but is just as thrilling to explore. Secret passages and underground tombs hide around every corner in The Order of Giants' ancient Roman tunnels, fueling a riveting and constant sense of progression.
But before players head down to the sewers, they get a brief chance to explore a small residential area that's seemingly been cleared out by Mussolini's Blackshirts. This small area only consists of a few apartment blocks squeezed tightly together, but it all feels incredibly immersive, with letters spilling out of mailboxes and curtains billowing out of open windows in apartments that have been abandoned.
Selfishly, I Wanted More Reasons to Stay in Indiana Jones: The Order of Giants' Rome
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's Order of Giants DLC takes around 3–4 hours to complete, and every minute is filled with trademark Indiana Jones action, puzzle-solving, or traversal. The DLC is much more linear than the base game, but that allows it to have strong pacing that ensures there's never a dull moment.
That said, Indiana Jones: The Order of Giants doesn't really feature any side content, and I can't help but feel like that's a massive shame. Aside from two new upgrade books you can pick up (both of which aren't all that useful in the grand scheme of things), there are no proper optional quests to complete in the DLC. Players are simply tasked with following the story to completion, and using their in-game camera sporadically to get XP.
It's completely understandable that developer MachineGames may have wanted to deliver a short and sweet story-focused DLC, but it does feel like a bit of a waste. The developers have crafted some absolutely gorgeous locations, and players don't really have a choice but to breeze through them to get to the next objective.
Just a few light side missions would have gone a long way to really cementing these locations in my mind, and putting them on the same level as the likes of the base game's Gizeh and Sukhothai. But now I fear they'll be forgotten far too quickly.
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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
