And so, after the mostly underwhelming and in some aspects pretty ugly experience of the 2023 Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny movie, the Indiana Jones original charm got unexpectedly restored in 2025, by a video game that practically no one expected to be good. I played Indiana Jones and the Great Circle a few months ago, and it felt like stepping inside an actually good Indiana Jones movie and becoming an active part of an adventure.
In this opening screenshot, you can see Doctor Jones in a third-person view, swinging on a whip, but for the most part ...
... the game forces you to go through the adventure in first person. And that's ok. I prefer the third person, but first person suits the gameplay here quite well, and those small doses of third person when Indy is climbing or swinging gave me enough break from the first person view.
Visually, the game is beautiful. The environment is amazingly detailed, and the details make sense. The above screenshot shows the interior of a hut in a Siamese village. I mean, it's Thailand in today's terms, but the game is set in 1937. Only a couple of years later, in 1939, the name was changed. The following screenshot ...
... shows the excavation site near the Great Pyramids in Giza. The year is always 1937. Not only is this game a fun and engaging adventure, but it is also a detailed reconstruction of some of the most beautiful parts of the world in the thirties. I played Indiana Jones and the Great Circle four or five months ago, and I wasn't into taking screenshots and posting on Hive in that period. That's why you won't see any action screenshot in today's post.
I played almost everything there is to play months ago and unlocked all the game's locations. Last night, when I felt a sudden inspiration to write a few words about this game, I revisited some places and took a few scenic screenshots along the way.
Here you can see a scene from Shanghai ...
... during a Japanese bombing at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945).
That Shanghai Chapter is a very small segment of the game ...
... a short linear level that doesn't offer much space for exploration, but ...
... but it is quite intense ...
... and the city in ruins looks so detailed and real. That makes it memorable.
In this screenshot, Indiana Jones is searching for a way out of a building in flames.
This is a scene from Egypt. The desert. The pyramid. A steam train is passing through.
Egypt, again. The same area. Some houses in the town of Giza.
This screenshot shows Indiana consulting a map while walking the streets of Giza.
Giza again. This street scene has a bit of street life on display.
Here you can see some military trucks from the nearby German base. Being set in 1937, and being about Indiana Jones, this game has plenty of German nazis and Italian fascists to fight, evade, or deceive.
This is a scene from an excavation site near the sphinx.
Here you can see Indy swinging on his whip in another excavation site in the area around the pyramids.
Another archeological detail from the excavation sites. The following screenshot ...
... shows an ordinary cellar in one of the ordinary traditional houses in Giza.
The fairly long segment of the game set in the Vatican often feels like a visit to a virtual museum.
Every time I had to visit the Sistine Chapel for whatever gameplay reason, I just had to stop a bit and watch the paintings.
I took a look at the ceiling when this screenshot was taken.
Here you can see part of the Chapel, where some restoration works were in progress.
This screenshot shows the Sistine Chapel from a slightly different angle.
This is a library somewhere else in the Vatican.
This Vatican's outdoor area shows a place where the terain has collapsed ... I think it was a collapse of sorts, but I'm not sure, months have passed since I played the game ... I also can't tell you why it collapsed if it has ... anyway, that's an excavation site now ...
... that leads to some crazy archeological underground stuff.
Here you can see Indiana Jones coming out of that mysterious hole in the ground.
At some point, the game leads you to a German military ship that somehow ended up in the Himalayas. That ship stranded on the frozen peaks was totally surreal... and totally cool in more than one way.
This is the ship's interior with some Nazi officers on ice.
Another room in the same frozen ship.
This is Thailand again.
The village looks great ...
... and you can drive a nice litlle boat there.
You can take screenshots from a different angle that way.
Yeah, the boat was really cool.
Here you can see Indiana consulting the map while walking around some ancient ruins.
All I have shown you here is totally superficial. The game offers more interesting things when you actually play through your adventure and solve puzlles. Maybe I'll make a few posts about that a year or two from now, when I play Indiana Jones and the Great Circle again.
This is my entry for the @gamingphoto/gaming-photography-weekly-contest-db797dd70f704 by 
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