Indiana Jones and the Great Circle makes its way onto PlayStation 5 this week!

When it comes to video games based on popular movie franchises we’ve come a long way since my childhood. In the not too distant past, most movie-based video games felt like the game devs weren’t allowed to know anything about the script, so they just guessed the plot. This led to a couple of “OK” games — like the X-Men Origins: Wolverine video game — but it mostly led to shitty cash grab games.

In recent years, we’ve seen a renaissance of games based on popular movies, characters, and franchises. One reason for the shift is that the game makers are now able to create their own original stories within these worlds.

This has led to Insomniac’s Spider-Man game franchise. We’ve also had some great new Star Wars stories in gaming. The two Star Wars Jedi games from Respawn introduced us to powerful unknown Jedi, Cal Kestis. Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment’s recent Star Wars Outlaws let players explore the galaxy as Kay Vess.

The examples above feature new stories in known worlds. While Spider-Man is a character we all know and love through comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Insomniac created their own version of Peter Parker, Miles Morales, and many other characters — from the well-known to the obscure. Cal and Kay are original characters created for these specific games. Their stories do include famous characters and smaller cameos from the Star Wars universe.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

In Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, MachineGames has provided us with an original story featuring beloved character — Indiana Jones. MachineGames has been working with one of the biggest names in Nazi-killin’ for a while now — BJ Blazkowicz (Wolfenstein). I’m guessing that their history with BJ is what earned the trust of 20th Century Fox, Lucasfilm, or Disney (or whoever owns the rights to Indy now).

I’ve been quite impressed with the caliber of this new Indiana Jones story. MachineGames’s last few games from the Wolfenstein franchise focused heavily on gunplay and massacring Nazis. With Indiana Jones and the Great Circle they have pivoted the focus more on storytelling, exploration, puzzles, and hand-to-hand combat with guns being Indy’s last resort. This is a cinematic adventure where you get to control the pacing of Indy’s story.

Speaking of “story,” the story is worthy of being added into the classic Indiana Jones trilogy. This is Indy in his prime. As I play through this game I actually feel kind of bad for any non-gamer fans of the Indiana Jones films who may never experience the story and characters of the Great Circle.

Ford vs. Baker

Thanks to the talents of the wonderful Troy Baker we get to have a brand new Indiana Jones adventure which takes place during Indy’s prime. I know many people don’t count The Crystal Skull and The Dial of Destiny as Indiana Jones movies.

Side Quest:
I am a fool who just wants more of the stories and characters I love. I hope that they continue
creating new Star Wars and Marvel movies and series until I am no longer around.

While playing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, I somehow see and hear both Troy Baker and a younger Harrison Ford through the Indy on my screen. It’s almost like the de-aging thing they’ve done in some recent movies, but not creepy. My brain knows that Peter Cushing died many years ago, that’s why seeing him on screen in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was a little unsettling.

If anything, this game gives me hope for the future. After this, I believe that if done with the right team and talent other famous characters (whose actors have perished or aged out) can be brought back in video game form. Will IO Interactive create a brand new James Bond or try to bring back one of the legends for their untitled Project 007?

I love the experience of exploring a brand new world in an original video game, but when done right it’s so nice to play around in a familiar world. The Uncharted series introduced us to a modern day Indiana Jones, Nathan Drake, but playing as Indiana Jones in his prime has been a delight.

Halfway Through

I’m about halfway through the story of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. I’m not one to rush through a game over one weekend. I really enjoy savoring my time with this adventure. I’m not a show binger (unless my partner makes me into one) and I love taking my time with a great big story-driven game — I’ve been working on Final Fantasy XVI since the start of 2025, and I’m currently on a short break — for this game.

A funny thing is that when I started Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, I decided (in my head) that I must be true to Dr. Henry Jones. That may have come from the opening dream sequence — which was basically a recreation of the opening scene from Indiana Jones: Raider of the Lost Ark.

Side Quest 2:
I’m not sure if this is true, but it felt as if MachineGames had recreated the opening
of the first Indy film as a vertical slice to pitch the game and say, look what we can do.
It was so great that they decided to open the game on that, which happened to be a
great intro and tutorial.

Early on in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle I was sneaking around and got caught. The alarm had gone off and I was surrounded by fascists in a building with no way out. I pulled out my gun and started taking out fascists — even their fascist dog felt my wrath. Then I thought, Would Indy really do it like this? Sure, he kills some bad people (mostly Nazis), but only when necessary. They usually get knocked out cold.

I decided to go back to my last checkpoint and take a more sneaky approach. I knocked out a few fascists and harmed zero fascist dogs. I even knocked out one fascist with my new favorite weapons — an acoustic guitar.

Once I went from the Vatican (Fascists) to Gizeh (Nazis) I had less of a problem with killing. In fact, I even found a new favorite Nazi-killing technique in this game.

More to Come

I still have about half of the story to go, according to my PlayStation 5. I plan to return with more on Indiana Jones and the Great Circle once I reach the end of the story. Thanks to Phil [Spencer] and Bethesda, and whoever decided to bring this game to the PlayStation 5. 

There have been many games that I missed out on because I didn’t own the proper platform to play it on. I usually tell myself, it’s fine there are plenty of other games. When Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was announced I just hoped it would make it to PlayStation 5 at some point. I’m so happy it did.

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*myVGBC.com was provided with a review code for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on PlayStation 5 by the publisher.