There is no game that surprised me more in 2024 thanIndiana Jones and the Great Circle. I went in expecting an Uncharted-style action IP romp, and was greeted with a game that wasmore immersive sim than anything else. It surprised me around every corner, and even made collectible hunting (one of my most hated triple-A trends) fun.
How did it pull this off? What work went on under Indiana Jones’ hat to make this game feel so good? Some things are self-explanatory, while others are more complicated. But every design decision that went into making this game worked together to make it a perfect distillation of the Indy experience.
Creative Combat
Creating animmersive simmight be more difficult than any other genre of game. As well as ensuring you’ve got all the fundamentals locked down – the story, the art style, etc. – you have to make magic in the code so that the game can react to any of the player’s actions.
The Great Circle is noPrey. You can’t transform into the Sphinx and roam around Egypt. But it’s an immersive sim-lite. You can pick up any feasible object and use it as a weapon. Whether it’s a baton or a guitar, you bet your archeological arse that you can bop a Nazi with it.
But this is an illusion of freedom, albeit a clever one. You can’tactuallyutilise any and every prop in the game to fight with. The books in the library can’t be used, and neither can stone tablets. Sure, there are alotof items that can be used as weapons, but the developers cleverly distract you from the ones that you can’t.
You quickly learn that large, heavy items can be used as weapons. Bottles, hammers, wrenches, and the like are left carefully scattered on tables, near enemies, or in some places where they would ordinarily be used. A broom in a dorm. Mining hammers next to an archeological dig. MachineGames teaches you what can be used as a weapon so that, the next time you see a prop artfully leaning against a wall or casually placed on a table, you know you may use it.
The other stuff, the set dressing, doesn’t even register. You never feel like you want to use any of that as a weapon, because the game has conditioned you to ignore it. This is a testament to both the level design and the implementation of the combat, both of which work in tandem to create the illusion that anything in the Great Circle can be used as a weapon.
Documenting Your Travels
Anyone who’s been on holiday will know that the most important thing about broadening your horizons is getting good snaps for the ‘gram. After all, if you didn’t post about your trip, did it really happen?
Indy’s camera is used as a hint system in The Great Circle. Stuck on a puzzle? Take a photo of it. Struggling with what to do in a dungeon? Whip your camera out.
This is a brilliant way to integrate the hint system with the wider world. It reinforces that feeling of immersion. You’re not delving into a menu, staring at the UI, or glancing at a guide. You’re taking a photo of something that puzzles you, and that prompts the characters to work out a little more about what’s going on. Indy will comment that he remembers similar tombs having hidden levers, his companion might happen upon a crucial clue. The important thing is, it’s all resolved in-universe.
This is a big reason why Indiana Jones feels so good to play. The photography feels great for grabbing screenshots, but it doubles as having a gameplay purpose, too. The same goes for the collectibles, the side quests: they all feel like things that Indy would want to find or do. Every gameplay decision has a narrative hook, and that’s what stops the game from feeling bloated or overstuffed. Everything is here for a reason.
The Devil’s In The Details
There’s far more going on than meets the eye in this game. Why does the stealth feel so good? Partly because it’s not an auto-fail if you’re discovered, partly because the levels are so meticulously designed that you can approach them in myriad different ways, and partly because it allows you to go in all whips blazing if you so wish.
Why does the game run so well? If you look carefully, NPCs over a certain distance away move at a lower frame rate than everything else. It’s barely noticeable when you’re happily playing, but helps the world to feel alive without sacrificing performance.
The clever level design that creates weaving webs of real places that truly feel alive. Troy Baker’s excellent Harrison Ford impression sells the realism. The cutscenes mirror the movies to nail that Indy vibe. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle may feel like a simple game on the surface, but underneath the smooth, movie-like veneer is a host of hard work and clever design decisions that immerse you in this world and make it one of the most enjoyable experiences of last year.
