Summary
As I was watching the Xbox Developer Direct, my partner walked into the room and said, “New Uncharted?” And really, who can blame him? If you’re not familiar with the 2024 slate of games and came across the trailer for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle without context, you might see the gameplay and think, woah! Nazis and puzzles in the jungle? It must be the new Uncharted, this time in first person!
Technically, Uncharted took a lot of inspiration from Indiana Jones, not the other way around. The Uncharted games have long been considered ‘Indiana Jones without the fedora’ and lean into similar settings, iconography, and visual language as the movies. Indy and Drake both love to nick other cultures’ ancient cultural treasures and artifacts, ostensibly to prevent them from getting into the wrong hands. They both often include Nazis too, which seems like a pretty direct line of comparison.
And honestly, the Indiana Jones game does seem to have similar gameplay to the Uncharted series. It looks like there’ll be less climbing and platforming than Uncharted, though it’s hard to say from one trailer – there are plenty of opportunities for that when you’re Indiana Jones. I’m drawn to the puzzles, which were also my favourite parts of the Uncharted games. There seems to be some pretty great, surprisingly visceral combat, more interesting than Uncharted’s because of the added mechanic of the whip, which is apparently designed to be used throughout the game in a number of contexts.
The combat in Uncharted has always been my least favourite part of the games. Maybe they should have given Nathan Drake a whip too.
The biggest difference between the games seems to be the perspective. Indiana Jones’ gameplay is mostly in first person, only switching to third person for cinematics and specific platforming, as opposed to Uncharted’s constant third person perspective. Many prospective players have expressed displeasure at this, saying that they want to see Indy doing these things, but the developers said in the Direct that they want the player to feel as if theyareIndy, which presumably means seeing through his eyes.
Considering that MachineGames has made all its Wolfenstein games in first person and specialises in portraying incredible combat and Nazi-killing from that perspective, we should be glad it’s sticking to what it’s great at. Also, if Indiana Jones was in third person, it might as well just be an Uncharted game. With a whip.
And that makes me a little sad. The game itself looks really fun – it might evenwhip, if you will – but because of the inspiration Uncharted took from the IP, it’s no longer a fresh, fun, original idea to make an Indiana Jones game. Indy did it first, but the Uncharted games jacked its whole vibe very effectively, and now nobody can look at this game and not think of Nathan Drake. They’re too close in genre, unfortunately, and The Great Circle hasn’t yet proven that it has enough to differentiate itself from that existing franchise.
