Loading into Adventure

When you first boot up Indiana Jones and The Great Circle, you’re met with a simple start screen featuring Indy standing front and center, with Peru’s massive Mount Shubet in the background. After pressing start, the game immediately begins, with Indy rearranging his hat before the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark becomes a playable prologue to developer MachineGames’ latest adventure. It’s a neat trick, seamlessly transitioning you from the video game UI into the game itself. Impressive, but nothing I hadn’t seen before.

But, as I poured more than 25 hours into the rest of this excellent pulp-action adventure, I couldn’t stop thinking about that tech. It’s not a neat trick – it’s a feature present virtually anywhere in the game. End a session in Indy’s office in Connecticut’s Marshall College? Your next start screen when you boot up the game will reflect that. This transition occurred anywhere and everywhere in the game when I stopped playing. And every time I continued, I was met with an incredible level of immersion, backed by unique animated flourishes that indicate Indy wasn’t just waiting for me – he was busy living in that moment.