Indiana Jones And The Great Circle Answers A 44-Year-Old Franchise Question

Expanding a movie franchise with TV shows, books, or video games is a tricky endeavor. There’s a temptation to answer every question that the source material doesn’t answer, to fill in all the gaps and make the nostalgia overcome the new story. A great spin-off manages to feel like an essential part of the franchise on its own, and when it does touch other parts of the series, it makes the answers or crossover feel inevitable. “Andor” cracked the code to this, recontextualizing elements of the original movies and adding layers of nuance to them by revealing the forgotten and erased history of the Rebellion while also telling the best “Star Wars” story in 40 years.

Similarly, there is another Lucasfilm property that just got a decades-long mystery answered in a way that improves the source material, without overshadowing the new story. It’s the 2024 game “Indiana Jones and the Great Circle” (recently released on the PlayStation 5) by MachineGames and published by Bethesda Softworks.

The story takes place in the year 1937, the year between the events of the original “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” This means Indiana has already witnessed undeniably supernatural events and has an established hatred of Nazis. The plot involves Indiana (voiced by Troy Baker) traveling around the world fighting off different fascist groups as they try to harness the power of ancient sites that form a perfect circle when together on a map — while also uncovering the mysteries of an ancient order that believed in literal giants.

Though an entirely new and original story (that nevertheless has all the staples of a great Indiana Jones adventure, like shooting a swordsman), “The Great Circle” does answer one big question from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” that was unresolved for 44 years — what happened between Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood? No, not in that scene.

This is the game’s greatest achievement, that it manages to be a proper and direct sequel to “Raiders of the Lost Ark” that actually builds on both the emotional and story arcs of the first film while still telling a brand new adventure that is standalone. The game picks up after Jones left Marion (voiced by Karen Allen through archive footage recordings), something that haunts him. Indeed, the game literally begins with Indiana having a dream of the opening scene of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” with the Golden Idol before Marion’s voice starts drowning out every other sound, screaming at Indiana for betraying her and abandoning her.

This carries over the entire game, as virtually every character Indiana comes across either asks him about what happened to Marion or confronts the archeologist about his unhealthy obsession with adventure and fear of commitment. There is even a dream sequence where Indy has an imaginary confrontation with Marion in a hallucination that calls him out for losing everything that was dear to him in the name of running around with a new floozy and fighting Nazis around the globe.

“Indiana Jones and the Great Circle” is not just a bunch of nods and references to the first film, of course. Nevertheless, it is important to note just how the nods and references it does have give Indy an arc throughout the game that is compelling on its own, but also adds to the experience of watching the movies. The game very much reaffirms how important Marion is to Indiana beyond just being the love interest from the most popular movie in the franchise that kept coming back for nostalgia reasons, but does give a good reason for why they are not together. Even the game’s villain teases Indiana about it.

What makes the game great is not just that it ties into “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” but that it feels like a quintessential Indiana Jones adventure while doing things the franchise never did before. Troy Baker is simply incredible at channeling Indy film star Harrison Ford, and the perfect argument against CGI de-aging. He manages to capture Ford’s charisma and commanding presence while still adding his own take on the character, all while the game’s graphics perfectly animate the actor’s mannerisms and iconic smirk.

The story is compelling, full of mystery and intrigue while offering a grand adventure that ties into world mythology. Sure, it goes back to Judeo-Christian lore yet again but it does nevertheless include culture, history, and mythology from many cultures like Egypt, Mesopotamia and even Siam (modern-day Thailand), with a scope none of the movies could replicate.

And, arguably most importantly, the game engages with fascism in a way none of the movies quite can. Throughout “The Great Circle” you encounter both Nazis, Italian Blackshirts and even Imperial Japan soldiers. The game doesn’t just treat them as cannon fodder and punchable faces, but rather extremely impressionable and dumb kids drawn to the imagery and the propaganda, with the story dedicating a fair amount of time and background dialogue to exploring the dangers and allure of fascism — and then mocking the hell out of them. The game even engages with people in academia who continue to work with or for Nazis in order to pursue personal research projects while believing themselves to be above politics.

“Indiana Jones and the Great Circle” does the impossible and delivers an adventure that feels as essential to the character as the original film, while being a completely fresh and new story that nevertheless connects to what’s come before it.