Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: release date window, trailers, gameplay, and more

Indy pulling a stone from a frozen corpse. — Bethesda

Grab your fedora, whip, and pistol because Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is plotting a course to consoles soon. After being announced via a small teaser in 2021, we’re now finally starting to put the pieces together on the mystery that is this new title from MachineGames. While many very popular and successful games have been inspired by the Indiana Jones film franchise, including Uncharted and Tomb Raider, Indy himself has yet to star in a true action-adventure game worthy of his legacy. Will this game be the one to remind audiences who the true pioneer of set-piece action and globe-trotting puzzle-solving is? Only time will tell, but we can at least guess based on all the clues we’ve unearthed.

Release date window

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will be released is scheduled for release sometime in 2024. Considering the slate of titles currently announced from first-party publishers, and how little we’ve seen of this game in comparison, we’d expect it to arrive in the last few months of the year. Of course, it could always slip into next year as well.

Platforms

Indiana jones buried in the sand. — Bethesda

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, coming from Xbox-owned MachineGames, will be an Xbox console exclusive and also be available on PC.

Trailers

The initial trailer for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle reintroduces us to Indy, who, as you would expect, finds himself neck-deep in trouble (literally). The trailer stays quite vague on details, but the developer commentary from the Developer Direct event where it was shown filled us in on the basics of the game’s plot.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will take place between the films Raiders of the Lost Arc and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. After realizing a seemingly unimportant artifact was stolen, Indy will go looking for answers as to why. This promises to lead him into a greater mystery and conspiracy that will unravel throughout the course of the game. While that is the bulk of what we know now, we do know that Nazis will be involved and it will be up to us to stop whatever they are planning.

The next look we got at Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was during the Xbox Games Showcase in 2024. It was almost entirely cinematic and set up a few plot points. We already knew Indy would be on the trail of a stolen artifact, but now we know this is one of many he needs to find. The locations he will need to travel to all form a circle on the globe, hence the game’s title. This trailer focuses on the Himalayas.

Exploring a frozen battleship, Indy and investigative reporter Gina Lombardi find what they’re looking for only to be quickly ambushed by Nazis. In traditional Indiana Jones fashion, Indy and the big bad quip at each other for a few moments while Gina gets into position to toss a grenade and cause some chaos so Indy can fight back.

Gameplay

Indiana pointing at a diagram on the wall. — Bethesda

There was plenty of debate about whether or not Indiana Jones and the Great Circle would be a third-person game. Our first look cleared that mystery up very quickly, confirming that the game will almost entirely be in first-person. The only exceptions are cutscenes and when performing traversal actions like climbing around the environment. This makes sense as the developers are most experienced in creating first-person titles and wanted to really put players in the shoes of Indiana Jones.

Combat so far consists of melee fighting with bare fists, a frying pan, using your whip, and pulling out a trusty pistol to blast away enemies. No other weapons were shown (with the exception of a machine gun mounted to a plane during a set piece), so it is unclear if you will stick with these core tools or swap out firearms as you go. Some moments of platforming and exploration also are featured, and will likely be used to break up the combat and set-piece moments.

Puzzles are another big component of the game. We see glimpses of Indy exploring ancient ruins and interacting with various contraptions in order to progress.