Indiana Jones and the Great Circle gameplay trailer has Indy channel his inner Agent 47

Bethesda and MachineGames debuted their lengthy Indiana Jones and the Great Circle gameplay deep dive, and the biggest takeaway is its immersive sim elements

MachineGames

Bethesda and MachineGames debuted their lengthy Indiana Jones and the Great Circle gameplay deep dive, and the biggest takeaway is its immersive sim elements. Its stealth game moments and intricate battles give you freedom similar to what you get in IO Interactive’s Hitman trilogy, where any solution could work – or get you killed, either way.

You can use your whip to crack a bottle for a distraction, grab a nearby object and hope it’s dense enough to knock an incoming foe out, or even lob a stick of dynamite into a crowd of enemies to see what happens.  One sequence in a frozen Nazi bunker shows Indy distracting a guard by tossing a hammer, then knocking out his compatriot. The first guard hears and is about to call for backup, so Indy aims a well-timed whip crack at the Nazi’s hand to remove his walkie-talkie and then gets in a fistfight. 

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

These one-on-one combat moments have their own sense of freedom. You can punch, shove, kick, use some fancy fist combos, knock enemies off balance with the whip, or grab a shovel and whack larger enemies who probably wouldn’t even register if the little archaeologist punched them. Sorry, big guy. Brains win in the end.

Puzzle solutions are, it seems, rather less open to experimentation. The obstacles shown in the Great Circle gameplay trailer looked rigid with no alternative approaches, but they seem cleverly designed to the point where figuring it out would still feel like a minor triumph. One example has Indy figuring out what to do based on his knowledge of religious history – which becomes your knowledge, once you examine the right items – and acting on it. Another sees Indy lob a spear into a particularly dense cluster of mushrooms, so he can use the shaft as a grapple point for his whip.

It looks like MachineGames might have landed on a proper balance with these puzzles and a fix for one of AAA gaming’s biggest issues: how much to tell you. The studio said The Great Circle hides clues to solutions and where to go next in the environment, journal entries, and even the photos Indy takes, but if you’re struggling, you can press a button to get a wee hint from the expert archaeologist. It’s a sharp contrast to how God of War Ragnarok was at launch, where Atreus practically fell over himself to shout solutions at you as soon as you walked into a room.

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

The Indiana Jones and the Great Circle gameplay trailer showed more than just combat, though we’ve seen or heard about most of it already. Indy and Gina have a network of partners around the world that help them sneak into locations and gain intel. There’s a handful of open-world locations for Indy to explore, though what they offer and how well MachineGames’ more focused approach to design in The Great Circle’s smaller areas translates to these larger ones remains uncertain.

There’s not much longer left to see for ourselves how it all comes together, though. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle launches on Dec 9, 2024, for Xbox Series X|S and PC via Windows and Steam.