After about ten minutes of running around the Vatican brandishing a biscotti like it was my own holy grail and ultimately angering a fair few fascists in the process (which in turn lead to me heroically fleeing the scene in order to find some kind of weapon – in this case, a crutch – to fight them off) I finally rediscovered my Indiana Jones and the Great Circle sea legs. Several months after finishing the main game, I was now ready to go back for a second helping thanks to its newly-released Order of Giants DLC.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: The Order of Giants
- Developer: MachineGames
- Publisher: Bethesda
- Platform: Played on Xbox Series X
- Availability: Out now on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and PC
The Order of Giants kicks off when Indy opens the ‘A Mystery Begins’ Fieldwork quest and locates Father Ricci in the Great Circle’s Vatican area. The priest, along with his rather endearing parrot companion Pio, speaks of a “Nameless Crusader” believed to be a “giant” of a man who never removed his helmet. This legendary chap appears to have some connection with a secret chamber beneath the Vatican’s Casina and with Indy never being one to shy away from unravelling a good story rooted in history, he agrees to investigate for the duo (because, yes, the parrot is absolutely a team member, and I will not hear otherwise).
Looking further into this nameless and larger-than-life crusader takes Indy under the streets of Rome, as he uncovers a mystery which expands upon the lore of the Great Circle’s Nephilim order. Along with simply discovering more of the order’s story, though, Indy also takes on a number of puzzles and platforming-based excursions in the process. Oh, and of course there are also some skirmishes with yet more fascists as well as a smattering of red-robed cultists. Ooh.
To see this content please enable targeting cookies.
Before I go too much further, let me say this right off the mark. Order of Giants doesn’t really add much new beyond story and some extra collectables. It feels more like a condensed, Vatican-flavoured microcosm of the full Great Circle game, but with an infusion of Sukhothai’s boat exploration. This DLC really should be considered a general extension to the Great Circle’s core mechanics, rather than something that will suddenly revolutionise what developer MachineGames has done previously. There are two new adventure books, for example (at least that I found), but rather than adding new skills, these books are more about buffs. Of course these are a nice boon – especially I imagine if you have not yet completed the main game – but as said, they don’t hold anything revolutionary that will mix up your Order of Giants experience.
Ok, back to it. Now while I really did enjoy the story being told in Order of Giants, in terms of gameplay progress I found it a tad predictable. The platforming sections only really relied on a few small mechanics such as whipping to ledges and pulling on chains to make your way through a predetermined route. Meanwhile, the puzzles themselves were more straightforward than I would have expected from an expansion released several months after the main game, with the likes of directing water through a specific channel, or pulling levers in the order they appeared on nearby images. They lacked a certain amount of creativity.