When Indiana Jones and the Great Circle release on the Xbox Series X and PC back in late 2024, it was quite the spectacle from a visual standpoint. Not only that, but the throwback story, tight gameplay, interesting puzzles and fun combat made it an awesome experience. Fast forward to now, and Indy is available on the Nintendo Switch 2. But, is this something that you should even consider, especially if you have access to other platforms? Let’s get into it.
Story
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is set in 1937 after the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and before The Last Crusade. The story picks up with an intruder breaking into Marshall College and stealing a rare artifact. Puzzled by the this, Indy ends up traveling the globe visiting the likes of The Vatican, Egypt, the Himalayas, Thailand and more in search of the thief. This leads down a rabbit hole involving Nazis, Italian Blackshirts, questionable clerics in the Catholic church and a handful of mysterious artifacts. These tie in with something called the Great Circle, a handful of historical sites around the globe that form a perfect circle. It’s up to Indy and his companions to figure out its secrets. The story beats are in line with what you would find in the older films with plenty of action and intrigue. Things here are very solid.
Gameplay - Exploration
Exploration plays a big role in The Great Circle. Controlling Indy from first person, you are tasked with hunting for relics, solving puzzles, traveling vast areas and taking notes on your findings. These are all kept in a handy journal which can be accessed with the Select button. Going through these is paramount to making progress in the main story or for side quests.
The whip plays a pretty significant role when exploring the various areas throughout the game. It can be used in combat (more on that later) to scare dogs, or disarm enemies and in other areas, too. It can be used to climb to out of reach areas, swing across chasms, and even to yank down select items. It’s a fun mechanic that brings that Indiana Jones feel to the game.
Additionally, other tools will be at Indy’s disposal including a camera which can give hints, a lighter, an underwater breathing device, and a journal. The journal is extremely useful as it’s a hub which contains documents you find on the adventure and is also a portal for upgrades and maps.
Gameplay - Combat
Like exploration, combat is handled via the first person perspective. Melee attacks are encouraged throughout the game, though a handful of firearms are on offer. Punches are assigned to ZL and ZR, while blocking can be initiated with L, and the whip with R. Starting out, fist fights are pretty simple but things get progressively more difficult during the experience. Sneaking up on enemies, especially ones with firearms, is paramount. Using various items scattered throughout the stages can be picked up and used here, which pack more power than standard fists. The blocking and counters can take a little bit of getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, things feel great.
As mentioned previously, firearms are available in the game. Indy even comes equipped with a revolver, however players are guided more toward using other methods. Still, using guns feels good, though enemies can take quite a few hits before being taken out. Gunshots also put enemies on high alert and make them come at Indy with a vengeance. On the standard difficulty settings, there are times when one shot can take out Indy, so it behooves players to take these guys out with stealth, avoid them, or make sure the shots don’t miss if you opt for your gun.
Mouse Controls & Gyro
While turned off by default, both gyro aiming and mouse controls with the Joy Con 2 controller are supported. You’ll have to dig through the menus a bit to get this set up, but it’s great to have these here. With the newly implemented mouse controls via the Joy Con 2, players can assign this to either the left or right controller (or both at the same time…), and of course, alter things like sensitivity. I prefer using standard controllers, so I didn’t play too much with this. One odd thing I noticed, and it could just be from lack of playing around with it for too long, was that the mouse controls could not be used in the settings menu. It’s not a huge deal, but it just seemed a bit odd. Regardless, whatever your preference is for controls, there are several options to choose from, which is a plus.
Visuals, Audio & Presentation
Like a handful of other third party titles have already proven, games can look and run admirably on Nintendo’s latest hardware. The same can be said with The Great Circle. The biggest drawback here when compared to other versions is the frame rate. In the Switch 2 version, things typically hang around 30 frames per second with some occasional dips, mainly when the game autosaves. If that doesn’t bother you, you’ll feel right at home with Indy on the platform. Environments are full of detail, period clothing looks spot on and faces animate nicely. On the other hand, there are issues and a few oddities that you will pick up on when you play the game in either handheld or docked. For example, animations of characters are a bit choppy when seen from afar, foliage takes a little bit of time to load, textures occasionally aren’t loaded in when you look at things close up and more. Even with these issues, and it might sound like I’m crapping on the game, the port to the Switch 2 is still impressive, but if visual fidelity is a concern of yours, you will be disappointed.
As for handheld mode, Indy looks alright when playing on the small screen however some of the finer details are a bit lacking. Shadows looks a bit worse here and pop in, particularly in the jungle environment of Sukhothai, is much more noticeable. The textures feel a bit flatter and you will notice a visual downgrade from playing in docked mode. Simply put, it’s a bit rough. I can’t comment on how The Great Circle runs on something like the Steam Deck, but even with the game being scaled back on Switch 2 in handheld mode, it still runs at 30 fps consistently outside of the occasional dips that I mentioned previously with docked mode.
Audio is a strong point of the experience, offering plenty of familiar tunes or, at the very least, sound-a-likes, that throw you into the world of Indiana Jones. The crack of the whip, gun shots, sounds of temples doors and more all play their parts well. Voice acting is also fantastic with great performances from Troy Baker’s take on Indy to the other companions and villains that you’ll meet along the way. This is as close as it gets to seeing a new adventure with Indy in his prime and things in terms of atmosphere are absolutely perfect.
Physical Version
Although quite rare for many third party publishers, Bethesda opted to include the entire game on the cart. Technically, you can play the game right out of the box without any updates at all, however, the day one patch (and others depending on when you get the game) is necessary if you want to play the game with mouse controls or Polish language support. Even then, the download for the patch is minimal, only taking up roughly 300 MB of space. Of course, if you’re looking to get into the game’s DLC, that will be a separate purchase and download from the eShop. Still, the fact that Bethesda took the plunge with what’s currently the largest cart capacity available is awesome for physical collectors. Unfortunately, they did not offer a collector’s edition this time around like they did with the Xbox and PlayStation releases, but it’s still great that you can play this right out of the box.
Conclusion
The Switch 2 version of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a great port that does a lot of things right, but still isn’t without flaws. If you care about frame rate, the 30 fps in this version will likely bother you. Some of the camera effects, like the bokeh effect in some cutscenes, or occasional stutters during autosaving are a bit annoying, but they don’t detract enough from the game to derail enjoyment. The story is great, and if you’re looking to pick up the physical version, everything (minus the day one patch…) is ready to play immediately after you insert the cart. Indy fans owe it to themselves to play this one, and curious adventurers shouldn’t hesitate taking the plunge.
But let’s turn things over to you. Did pick up Indy on the Switch 2? Have you already played it on other platforms? What do you think of the game? Anyway, sound off with any and all comments down below. We’d love to hear from you.
Final Score: 9.0
by Danny Bivens
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