Apparently, 2024 is the year for big budget games with gorgeous ray traced graphics set in film worlds created in part by George Lucas. Earlier this summer, Ubisoft launched the much-maligned Star Wars Outlaws, which I thought was kind of cool.
Now, Bethesda, Machine Games, and Microsoft are having a go with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. It launches on Xbox Game Pass on the 9th, but I’m a sucker and I paid thirty five bucks to upgrade to the “Deluxe” edition to get early access.
I knew from the marketing that this would be a lavish and beautiful action game, with some melee combat, platforming, and light puzzle solving in various tombs and crypts. I didn’t fully realize how it would also be a weird pseudo open world sneaking simulator, owing a lot of its design to games like BioShock or Dishonored.
As weird as those games got, this one is somehow even goofier from a narrative dissonance perspective. It’s asked me to do things that I never thought Indiana Jones would ever waste his time doing, and even though it has an unusual chill vibe that’s as much about clicking on things and seeing gorgeous visuals as it is about fun movie action — I’m still kind…
