Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is more than Xbox’s Uncharted

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This story is part of our Summer Gaming Marathon series.

Creating an Indiana Jones video game is a daunting task. It’s not just that you have to honor an iconic film franchise that fans are very protective of; you also need to make it stand out from Uncharted, a beloved series that is already ostensibly a thinly veiled Indiana Jones adaptation. It’s a challenge, but one that MachineGames seems to have cracked withIndiana Jones and the Great Circle.

Ahead of its latest trailer reveal at Gamescom Opening Night Live, I got a deeper look into the upcoming action-adventure game. While previous looks have focused on story, the latest presentation gives a much deeper look into its combat, exploration, and more. While there are some parallels to Uncharted, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle feels more indebted to Wolfenstein, Hitman, and even The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. That makes it feel much more like an Indiana Jones game than a boilerplate tomb-raiding adventure.

Tools of the trade

Set after Raiders of the Lost Ark,The Great Circle begins at Marshall College, where someone steals a priceless relic. Jones teams up with photojournalist Gina to recover it, only to discover that there’s a wider conspiracy at play that goes through Nazi territory. With the help of some companions, they set out on a globe-trotting adventure that involves the villainous Emmerich Voss and the titular Great Circle, a ring that connects the world’s biggest landmarks (an idea that came from producer Todd Howard).

There’s some familiar gameplay here. I saw Jones shimmy up walls and do some platforming through tombs, not unlike Nathan Drake (a hero clearly modeled after Jones). A thrilling opening sequence sees him escaping a tomb that slowly fills up with sand, running and sliding as rocks collapse around him. However, the gameplay presentation stresses that The Great Circle is much more unique in a way that feels fitting for Indiana Jones.

That starts with his toolkit.