Disclaimer
The PC copy of the game used for parts of this review was provided by the publisher at no cost to the reviewer.
Introduction
For many years, thanks to my family, I have been a big fan of Indiana Jones as a character and as a franchise. However, something I’ve always wanted to do, fully enjoy an Indy video game on my own terms, hadn’t happened yet as of me writing this review. With Bethesda now being under Microsoft’s umbrella, I was interested to see what innovative elements of accessibility might be wrapped up in this new next generation offering.
Seeing the information released as a part of the accessibility guide for the game before I received my copy did give me an idea of what to expect, including no menu narration but with that ostensibly being planned for a future update.
Thanks to a free review code provided by the publisher, the real question is, just how accessible is Indiana Jones and The Great Circle without sight?
First Boot
On first boot of the PC version, I was greeted by some interesting sounding logos, though with no actual context (i.e. narration) as to what they were for.
After that, everything went silent (though that was due to the game running on PC and me being outside of the window in order to continue taking notes.
Via the now familiar workaround of Optical Character Recognition (OCR), I realised I was at a press start screen when i alt tabbed back in.
Given I knew there’d be no menu narration and a lack of features that would assist me directly on my own, I then closed the game, updated graphics drivers etc and got a sighted CoPilot.
Adventuring Assistance
I discovered that the logos in order were for Bethesda, machine Games, Lucas Film and then, the game’s title card.
After this, the ambience fades in and, though you might not expect it, a rather loud audio cue plays when you press a button to start.
After this, you receive information about historic setting and characters, as well as photosensitivity warnings, which are unfortunately not dismissible (i.e. they just disappear of their own volition) and are also, unsurprisingly not narrated.
As much as you might think you’re going into the game itself from that initial paragraph, you are instead taken to the first setup screen, which is visuals. This includes the ability to adjust subtitle settings, as well as a high contrast mode.
This and other screens wrap vertically, but horizontal options like UI font size didn’t wrap
After pressing A to continue, an autosave screen briefly appears, showing the autosave icon (Indy’s iconic hat with a circle around it).
The next screen is action experience settings, starting with the focus on moderate, as seen below through text taken directly from OCR:
ACTION EXPERIENCE
Light
Moderate
The default setting for adventurers who
want a moderate stealth and combat
challenge.
Enemies deal average damage and attack
in moderate numbers.
@ CONTINUE
Hard
@Back
Select
The remaining difficulties are described in similar fashions, as follows:
-
Light:
For adventurers who enjoy a lighter stealth
and combat challenge.
Enemies do less damage and attack in
fewer numbers. -
Hard:
For adventurers seeking a harder stealth
and combat challenge.
Enemies dish out significant damage and
attack in greater numbers. -
Very hard:
For the bravest adventurers looking for a
very hard stealth and combat challenge.
Enemies land devastating blows and
attack in overwhelming numbers.
The vertical wrapping seen earlier could have been an oversight, as the horizontal difficulty select doesn’t wrap.
After confirming the selection, the next setup screen is Adventure experience.
Somewhat strangely, said screen seemed to only show light and moderate to select from, as per the below list:
-
Light:
Enjoy the story with a lighter adventure
challenge.
Exploration is more guided and the
puzzles are easier to solve. -
Moderate:
The default setting lets you enjoy the story
with a moderate adventure challenge.
Exploration is not guided and the puzzles
are more challenging but still manageable.
Funnily enough, the lowercase J character seemed to be picked up by OCR as a lowercase I. For those of you who know your Indiana Jones lore, you might find this amusing for a very specific reason related to Last Crusade, which I won’t spoil.
As an interesting note, though the ambience during this entire process is in surround sound, logos were not.
Oddly enough, we are next taken to a screen to adjust brightness and the option to enable HDR, which I might’ve thought would’ve been the first things to be tweaked much ealier on, if other games are to go by.
Once again vertical wrapping is present here. For the record, I left HDR off and brightness at 50.
After another press of continue, what greeted us was termed as “viewing experience; picture framing”. To quote the screen itself, Select the type of picture framing to be used, for your preferred experience.
Here, we have the choice of Full Screen, Widescreen or Cinematic.
After our selection, we enter the main menu, with a cutscene of sorts (no audio description unfortunately) and a vertical wrapping main menu.
As a side note, the options menu and other screens also vertically wrap and, oddly enough, we couldn’t seem to find a play in background option for audio either on a first look, something crucial if you have to alt tab out of a game to read the chat on stream or look things up, for instance, whilst still keeping immersed.
This game features Xbox cloud save syncing, though I didn’t seem to get a prompt to sign in at all, even though it looked like I already was, making it a little confusing.
When using OCR in the main menu, the small bullet point symbol allows you to tell what option you’re on, which is actually more useful than you’d think.
The OCR also works well for the tooltips on the various options, though of course things like special outfits are not described other than in name only, which is unfortunate.
The Game Itself
Having gone through the options and adjusted what felt like it could be useful for either of us, we elected to dive in and see where the adventure took us.
Once we started the game, there was no way for me to navigate and no audio description, thus making me feel rather lost, at least until my CoPilot stepped in. As much as the sound design was great, as was the score, the sequence we found ourselves in as brilliant as would be expected too, I couldn’t help shake the feeling that I’d love to do this on my own terms without the need for someone else to be at the controls with me.
That being said, on my surround setup, the ambience filled the room and the voice acting definitely enhanced that movie feel.
Even acting on prompts, achieved by pressing X then moving the left stick, was made trickier by said interactions requiring movement in specific directions that are not cued in terms of audio or able to be autocompleted, as well as not having any cue other than visually to indicate their presence.
I won’t spoil the opening sequence but suffice it to say it sets the scene perfectly to transport us into the world of Indiana Jones and a pserspective that most wren’t necessarily sure of working with (i.e. first-person), though I personally didn’t mind it at all as it didn’t make much difference if any from an audio standpoint.
Further Adventures
Getting a taste of combat came not only after that initial opening, but with no actual discussions of parrying or blocking that I could see, other than in the title’s in-game manual. Unfortunately, when I tried to execute a parry, it was unclear as to when I’d done so and, with the enemy attacks having such quick wind-ups, it was difficult to even try and time them in the first place.
Having an audio cue to match the visuals here would be of great use to many, as timing parries is something that people historically find tricky even if they can see. Having an alternate channel of information beyond just sight makes for a more fluid experience as well if executed correctly, a sentiment that can be applied to elements outside of just this one combat mechanic.
That all being said, combat, in spite of feeling less strategic than I would’ve liked due to the frustrating parry timings at least in this early section of the game, felt very satisfying from an audio standpoint. Though Indy’s punches had reverb (which I personally don’t think was needed), everything had impact and weight, including temporary weapons.
The score was equally thematic, with a short sting whenever you were seen by enemies and the voice acting and mixing (once I’d adjusted a couple of levels) made me feel like I was playing a movie, albeit one where we struggled to find where to go.
Indiana Jones And The Frustrating Question Marks
Most games feature some kind of symbol to indicate where you’re meant to be going and how close you are. In the case of The Great Circle, however, the objective marker seemed intent on making us run round in such a loop without end, as the question mark would disappear when we thought we were close to our intended destination.
When I streamed the game later with a co-pilot who had sunk numerous hours into the game and finished it in fact, this problem was less noticeable, but making sure players can easily determine where objectives are is a key element of reducing frustration.
Auditory Adjustments
Remember those tweaks I mentioned earlier? Those were specifically to be able to hear the dialogue under default settings. It turned out that, amongst other things, gameplay SFX and voice volume were both set to 80 instead of 100 (which music and other values were set to), thus explaining why they were drowned out relatively speaking.
There is no reason in my mind for this trend to exist, though if anyone has a theory I’d love to hear it.
Once I changed these values, the associated elements stood above the score and ambience much more effectively, meaning that I could actually hear what was going on in the true cinematic fashion that was likely intended.
Exploring The Game Itself
After a little while of further gameplay, including our first sequence showing a map with that classic line illustrating Indiana Jones’ route to and from a destination, we got our first taste of the open world and just how heavily immersive things would get.
Finding multiple interesting items, notes and pieces of information, as much as OCR worked with them reasonably well, the system fo finding where quests, skills and other elements could be easily accessed was complicated further by menu narration not being present. After all, if I can figure out where to find things, then my sighted co-pilot doesn’t necessarily have to remember as much, thus reducing the cognitive load on their part.
This game has an almost overwhelming amount of additional side stories, which involve various puzzles of one form or another, even if that puzzle is able to be simplified down to “so how do I get through this door?”. Figuring out such things is fine in principle, but can certainly be known to take far longer than might be intended, leading in you need to look up guides and the like for what might seem like the simplest aspects.
As we traversed our way through the first sprawling location, we realised just how much there was to do, but we did keep going back to the main story when we had the resources to do so. That being said, given how much more narrative I have yet to see, I’ll update this review if I find anything else worthy of note.
Summary
Pros
- Great sound, music and acting
- Feels just like you’re in an Indiana Jones movie, including hilarious, unexpected moments
- Font reads well with OCR
Cons
- Constant sighted assistance required
- Missing key features like navigation assist and menu narration
- Audio levels are not set to allow you to hear needed elements at default values
Conclusions
Indiana Jones And The Great Circle, whilst it is broad in scope, solid in execution and immersive in its gameplay, does not have the accessibility for gamers without sight to allow even more players to fully inhabit a world and character that so many have come to know and love.
Even though this title has brilliant sound design, haptics and music, as well as acting and a story that has captivated so many, a lack of navigation assistance (possibly partly due to the game’s focus on exploration), menu narration and other key accessibility features means that I can’t recommend this title to those without sighted assistance.
Even then, I find it hard to recommend this to all but the most hard core Indiana Jones fan with assistance, as, depending on how you play, the amount of agency you’ll be able to get including in combat where parry timings are not able to be figured out by audio will vary depending on who you’re playing with and how well they too understand the game.
With that being said, this game is a fantastic and passionately crafted showcase of immersion and movie-like construction at its finest and I am very curious to see what this team goes on to do in terms of improving the formula with accessibility additions in future, should opportunities arise to do so.