Indiana Jones and the Great Circle hands-on: two hours exploring open-world Egypt reveals a wealth of treasures

MachineGames’ first-person adventure is polished like a diamond

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle / Bethesda

Of course you can’t kill dogs in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. 

After you’re bitten, Nazi attack hounds will run off to snore in a corner, invulnerable to damage. It’s one of many ways developer MachineGames absolutely nails the tone of Indiana Jones. After all, when would the legendary archaeologist ever hurt an animal?

There are plenty of more examples. In this first-person adventure/puzzle game published by Bethesda, bashing Nazis over the head with over a dozen different melee weapons produces a satisfying clang followed closely by a casual quip, like “kinda scrappy for a little guy.”

Catching sight of your shadow, meanwhile, reveals Indy’s classic bow-legged running style. This game manages to feel even more Indiana Jones than the last two movies.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle / Bethesda

Set in 1936, between Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle sees Harrison Ford’s legendary archeologist (here played by The Last of Us actor Troy Baker) attempt to stop a group of Nazis led by evil Emmerich Voss from finding a mythical conduit of power and using it to fuel a new generation of devastating weaponry. 

This is prime Indiana Jones reforged from exhaustive reference materials. “I’m not joking when I’m saying thousands of images of Harrison Ford in that period of time of his age around the Raider of the Lost Ark,” says the game’s creative director Axel Torvenius.

Read more: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle looks like a true successor to The Chronicles of Riddick

His team used the material to create an obscenely detailed 3D mesh that’s easily the most lifelike the character has ever looked in a video game.

“There are a lot of those details that have just been scrutinized to hell and beyond,” Torvenius continues. “Like you know, how thick should his finger look. His nails. Are they short, are they long?... The thickness of the eyebrows, the color of the eyebrows. All of those details tie in.” It’s just a shame there’s no photo mode. 

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle / MachineGames

The first part of my hands-on takes place in Marshall College, Connecticut. Like with Ford, MachineGames has recreated the place majestically, using its few minutes of screentime to build out its wood-paneled halls, grand exhibit rooms, and cluttered offices. When he’s not gallivanting across the globe, here Jones teaches his archeology course. 

During the night, a huge man in a black robe breaks in to steal an artifact. After a failed first-person brawl that results in Jones being knocked unconscious, he wakes up to clean away the mess. Here you’ll solve your first puzzle: picking up strewn museum items and examining them to see which display case they belong to.

It sets the standard of polish that continues throughout the game. For instance, each individual object is lovingly detailed and comes with a paragraph of descriptive text despite being in Indy’s hands for no more than a few seconds. He’s got a unique animation for returning each item to its plinth, too. 

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle / Bethesda

In the next section, you’re packing your suitcase to track down the location of the stolen artefact. You’ll grab your bullwhip, your favorite gramophone record, and even a photo with a special message from Marion on the back, Indy’s long-time love interest. From 1930s-era pencil pots and coffee mugs to typewriters and history books, every object in Indy’s office is a clearly legible momento, restored precisely as it looked in the films. 

Now it’s off to Gizeh, and the first of several open-world areas. Here Nazis are digging around the pyramids. What for? This is what you’re going to find out. First, it’s off to meet your contact. She’s in a tent in the village, which is a good two-minute walk away. Nazis patrol the roads, so it’s best to stick to the hills (though you can interact with signposts to unlock them as fast travel points). 

Your contact wants you to bring her four stone tablets located in dark tombs across the map. For that, you’ll need a lighter. The next step is to buy one from a merchant in a bustling market. She’s partnered with a mischievous capuchin monkey, the same species that accompanied Indy and Marion on their shopping trip in Raiders of the Lost Ark. 

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle / Bethesda

Here’s where the game truly kicks off. Now you’re let off the leash in open-world Gizeh, free to pursue the four stone tablets in any order you wish. One of them is located in a tomb infested with hundreds of scorpions. You can’t endure their stings for more than a few seconds, so instead you have to ignite torches with your lighter and throw them to create an insect-repelling trail.

Another tomb requires you to slot stone dials into their corresponding circles. This shines a light on the weak point of a wall, which you then smash through with a sledgehammer. It’s nothing if not tactile. The wall comes down with a satisfying crumble, and even opening chests and doors requires you to grip the handle with a face button and move the left stick in the right direction. 

From heaving your middle-aged heft up ledges to belly crawling through low passages, slow and steady is the pace of the game - Uncharted this isn’t.

Combat gives it a necessary shot in the arm. It’s frequent in The Great Circle, given the abundance of enemies, but they go down in a few solid whacks. You can hold LB to block and press B to dodge before unleashing counters on the triggers. 

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle / Bethesda

Knockout blows can be followed up with a cheeky final whack as your foe is falling to the floor to add insult to injury. You can’t keep punching them on the ground, though, as that’s just not Indy’s style.

I count 13 melee weapons in total, and that’s just after two hours of play. These are: broom, crutch, fly swatter, violin, shovel, pickaxe, candlestick, hammer, chisel, rolling pin, pitchfork, umbrella, and frying pan containing the last burnt remnants of a slice of Swiss cheese. They break after a few hits, forcing you to look out for replacements.

Picking up and throwing spent bottles of booze, meanwhile, lets you distract enemies then instantly knock them out with a crushing bash. It’s sanitized, sure, with Indy opting to use the blunt ends of otherwise deadly hardware, but it’s also gratifying, especially when combined with your bullwhip. 

Pressing RB lets you snag an enemy’s weapon out of their hand, knock them off balance, or drag them over. The emotion on their face is almost more of incredulity than pain, their eyes bulging with amazement you actually brought a bullwhip to a fistfight. 

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle / Bethesda

My favorite move is bringing them close, holding RB to clinch their shirt collar, and letting off a few hits to the face before pushing them over a big drop.

MachineGames actually recruited a Swedish bullwhip champion to help nail the mechanics of it. “We went up and had a 360-degree mic set-up surround him where he was standing and doing a lot of different whip actions in different environments,” says Torvenius, “like in an open-space environment. What kind of echo does that create? In a closed environment, what type of sound does that create?”

You don’t want to get liberal with the whip, though, because some Nazis carry guns. One shot is all it takes to alert scores more, which is a scenario even the world’s greatest archeologist won’t overcome easily. 

You can pick up and use guns, but it’s ill-advised given their volume. What’s smarter is pressing X to flip it upside down and using it to bash people with. To regain health, you’ll use bandages and snack on period-accurate foods, like a hunk of biscotti strewn with pistachios. 

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle / Bethesda

Brain power is how you even the odds. In one tomb, you can wait until two Nazis are standing in a pool of water before flicking a lever and electrifying them. There are also plenty of sleeping Nazis to creep up on and smash, their wooden chairs crumpling in a heap beneath them.

Contrary to the game’s trailers, this is not a straightforward first-person brawler peppered with the odd puzzle. You’ll steal clothes to use as disguises, snap photos to scan environments and find alternate routes, pick up items to fill out your scrapbook, and collect comic books to unlock skills. 

The best skill is ‘lucky hat,’ which lets you revive yourself by pressing X to pick up your signature fedora.

Read more: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle release date and FAQ

Other skills are less interesting. Unlocking the ‘moxie’ skill gives you more stamina, ‘brawler’ makes your attacks do more damage, and ‘climbing ace’ increases your climbing speed. The game could have been a bit more imaginative here.

After finding all four stone tablets, I return to my contact and the demo ends. I wanted to keep playing. The melee combat is engaging, the open-world exploration is freeing but never aimless, and the playful tone captures what’s great about Indiana Jones, dog-forgiving and all.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle releases December 9, 2024 on Xbox and Game Pass, and 2025 on PS5.