Indiana Jones & The Great Circle Avoids The Biggest Movie Mistake

Indiana Jones is returning to the world of video games for the first time in a decade in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. The game shows every classic hallmark of an Indy adventure: brown fedoras, trusty whips, foreign lands, witty love interests, famous treasures, and Nazis. Once again, some timeless villains are making an appearance to vie with Indiana Jones for holy relics and priceless artifacts.

While it might seem a bit tired to keep bringing back the same story elements for yet another Indiana Jones story, keeping the classic villains is the right move. The Great Circle is Indy’s first big video game outing in a long time, since his last game, the Facebook game Indiana Jones Adventure World, doesn’t exactly count as an AAA adventure. With such an outing on the small screen, it makes sense that The Great Circle is avoiding the mistakes of past movies.

Indiana Jones & The Great Circle Keeps Nazi Villains

Fighting Nazis Is A Timeless Hobby For The Adventurer

The Nazis are the simplest villains for a character like Indiana Jones. While they pursue the various artifacts in the series for personal glory or for the sake of their oppressive empire, Indy tries to protect treasure and the people around him, though his archaeological practices can sometimes be questionable. A story never needs to explain what the pursuit of the Nazi is, since the audience can instantly understand that their intent is evil.

Keeping Nazis as the main villains in The Great Circle comes down to one solid fact: All the best Indiana Jones movies include them losing once again to Indy. The two outliers in the series, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, both tried to avoid reusing Nazis to their detriment. Temple of Doom opted to focus on an evil cult instead of reusing the villains from Raiders of the Lost Ark, mostly to change things up for a sequel.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny also featured Nazi villains, but performed poorly at the box office.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull included a significant shift in era due to the actor’s ages and thus replaced Nazis with Cold War-era Soviets, which didn’t work as well due to the villain’s motivation. In fact, they seemed more like watered-down Nazis with the same vague goals. The Great Circle will bypass this problem by bringing back the classic villain.This choice might seem too safe, but it’s clear that going back to the basics is what the majority of fans prefer. The Great Circle will be an incredibly cinematic game, so reusing the villains from the best movies will be an asset to the game.

Indiana Jones Is At His Best When Dealing With Nazis

Why These Villains Are Perfect For The Great Circle Game

Indiana Jones is a counter-figure to fascism. If there’s anyone needed to punch Nazis, he’s the guy. Indiana fights for the preservation of other cultures’ artifacts because he is an academic, hence his famous “that belongs in a museum” line, while the fascists seek artifacts to justify their own perceived greatness.

Indiana Jones's bad guy talking to Indiana Jones in the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle game

Is Indiana Jones & The Great Circle On Xbox Game Pass Day-One?

Many players are wondering if Indiana Jones and The Great Circle will be on Xbox Game Pass Day-One, and to find out, it takes a bit of research.

These are simple motivations that drive characters to great lengths, while the stakes are also higher since any Nazi win could mean victory in WWII at large. This setup is where an Indiana Jones story excels, since it’s both simple and compelling to the audience. The game doesn’t need to waste time explaining why the villains are villainous, they simply are, so the game can spend more time on letting players solve puzzles or explore the world.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has shown through its trailers that Nazis and their ilk will be a major component of the game’s story. The Blackshirts, an Italian fascist paramilitary group that followed Mussolini, can be spotted in the trailer when Indiana Jones is in the Vatican. Since both Germany and Italy were ruled by fascists in World War II, adding the Italian variant makes sense for a new Indy story as he has always excelled at defeating fascists. Expanding the villains to a new, but familiar, group is a clever way to copy the success of past movies while not treading the exact same path.