Indiana Jones and the Great Circleis a rare action-adventure game that puts a heavier emphasis on “adventure” than “action.” Sure, youcanshoot guns, but that tends to bring a clown car full of Nazis down on your head faster than you can say, “Eat lead, Fritz!” No, the emphasis is on theexploration, the slow accumulation of geographical knowledge and key documents as you poke your way through underground tunnels, whether hidden beneath the Vatican or the Great Sphinx.
Indiana “Open Zones” Jones
Games likeUnchartedtend to only give you so much leash. You get to explore a bit, but then you have to move on, as the level is comprised of discrete bits that come together to form a linear whole, like pearls forming a necklace. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is different, plopping you into a series of maps and giving you free rein to explore in all directions until you’re ready to move on. It’s more like several open-world games in a trench coat than a traditionally linear one.
That’s a pretty strange structure. We see it implemented in RPGs — likeAvowed,Baldur’s Gate 3, andVampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines— and Obsidian even has a name for it:open zone. It makes sense for that studio’s quest-driven games, likeThe Outer Worlds. You don’t want to overload the player with too many storylines, too many factions, too many decisions at once. So, you keep much of those elements hidden behind a door that you may only unlock by progressing the story.
Plus, it works well as a check on the player’s level.
But this approach to design is much less common in action-adventure games, like Uncharted,Resident Evil 4, andGod of War. These games tend to barrel straight ahead, taking you through linear levels that allow a bit of time for exploration, but nottoomuch. By borrowing fromthe immersive sim tradition, though, Indiana Jones has found a great format for this kind of adventure.
Putting The Adventure In Action-Adventure
That’s because, well, it’s an adventure -a word synonymous with exploration. Of all the Zelda games, the one that has most captured the feeling of being on an adventure was Breath of the Wild, which opened the world up and threw you out into it, weak and wearing only underpants. Opening the world up, giving the player a sandbox to play in and leads to follow, contributes to the feeling that you’re on an adventure.
But Indy is also going for cinematic action, and that isn’t something that a game like Breath of the Wild was ever trying to capture. The result is a pretty satisfying mix of open-ended exploration and set-the-controller-down-for-a-few-minutes cutscenes. It might seem like an odd mixture, but it nicely mirrors the split between action and exposition, lore and character, that you get in one of Spielberg’s movies. While games like Uncharted attempt to replicate the pace of movies like Indiana Jones, MachineGames understands that players want more time in the world. They want to soak it up, not speed through it.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is demonstrating a different way of putting this kind of game together, and I’m here for it. If Indiana Jones — the father of the modern action-adventure — can slow down and take some time to explore, then his descendants should, too.
