Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: The Order of Giants DLC is a minor distraction with a shallow payoff

For Xbox owners, Indiana Jones And The Great Circle was a big release from Bethesda. It not only brought back a classic cinematic hero into the spotlight, but was made by Machine Games, who is widely known for the Wolfenstein series. It seemed like a great match for a franchise like Indiana Jones, and the result was reflected by the praise the game received from critics and fans. This is why the announced downloadable content for the game, The Order of Giants, was highly anticipated. People wanted to see more from Indy and his adventures in what many felt was a great addition to the legacy of the series.

But does The Order of Giants DLC live up to the hype it received? Unfortunately, this side story for Dr. Jones only serves as a mild distraction from the larger narrative of the game. And while Indiana Jones makes a trip to Rome to follow up on leads for the mysterious Order of the Giants, it doesn't end up coming together for a massive payoff that fans of The Great Circle were hoping for. It might be a good way for players to get more from the puzzles and overall atmosphere that the game did so well, but you wouldn't be missing anything if you skipped over it.

An offshoot tale

Needed greater importance to everything

If there's one thing that The Order of Giants content does that is super disappointing, it's how insignificant it feels to the rest of the plot to Indiana Jones And The Great Circle. The overall plot of the downloadable content expands upon sections of the Vatican City, where Indy visits during the earlier sections of the game. He encounters a priest who asks for his help in finding an artifact that was tied to Pope Paul IV and the Roman Emperor Nero. Indy agrees and goes on a chase for the artifact, which takes him deeper into Rome and puts him at odds with a group named The Cult of Mithras. Through clues from artifacts and ancient writings, Indiana Jones chases down leads that bring him to a being known as the Nameless Crusader, which has connections to the Nephilim Order.

By the time I finished going through the plot for The Order of Giants and seeing where the strings of the mystery led, I was left feeling disappointed. There are references to parts of the main plot of The Great Circle as a whole, but I never felt that anything within this mystery hinted at bigger revelations or made the main plot of the game even better. This side story takes place shortly after meeting Gina during the main story, but she doesn't appear at all during the events of the new content, which felt further disconnected from everything else.

Part of what made Indiana Jones And The Great Circle so good was how it felt like a classic story for Indy to be part of that cleverly tied itself together by the end, which had a big payoff in the same spirit as the classic Indiana Jones films. And unfortunately, I just didn't get that from going through the new content. It may be better to explore The Order of Giants story while still going through the main game, rather than after finishing it. But it still feels like someone would not be missing a big part of the story if they never engaged with it.

More tedious puzzles

They will really test your patience

Despite the plot of the DLC being supplementary, is the core gameplay still interesting, or does it have anything new? Much of the gameplay remains the same, with no changes to what you do from the main game. The new locations that you visit are an offshoot of the Vatican City area, which can be accessed during that chapter of the main story. The Order of Giants content doesn't add anything radically different or game-changing in a way where you have to play through it differently than anything else. It feels like this content could've just been part of the main game for when Indy is in the Vatican City. But one thing the DLC has that's new are more immersive puzzles, which can and will test your patience a bit more than before.

There are a few new ancient puzzles for Indy to solve while chasing leads about the Nameless Crusader. And while the immersion is still at an all-time high, completing these puzzles can get very tedious and complex. I had to move objects and direct elements through complicated courses to get past them, which didn't always work out in my favor the first few times I attempted to do so. What makes some of these puzzles tougher than the ones in the main game is how timing and positioning are major factors when solving them. If you're not looking at a guide with the answers, finding the right solutions will take a lot more time than before, especially when solving a puzzle requires you to rush to place objects down before another object reaches a certain point. It can get very frustrating at times, even with Indy's camera giving hints. It can be especially frustrating when what you have to do isn't hard in concept, but very annoying and tedious in practice.

A problem that arises with puzzles like these is when an occasional bug or glitch messes things up. I was forced to restart back at a checkpoint to solve some puzzles because of objects getting lost or stuck in places that prevented me from moving forward. One section, after fighting a group of cult members, required me to use a stone as a key to a puzzle, but it disappeared from Indy's inventory while I was moving around and avoiding attacks. It didn't drop on the ground or go back into his inventory, it simply vanished without explanation. Another instance where I needed to use a staff to turn plates on the ground wouldn't trigger the prompt to do so until I restarted from a checkpoint. This might be inconsistent for some players and their save file, but these kinds of things happen frequently enough to be a problem that requires a fix.

An underwhelming clash

Combat isn't much different

Indiana Jones doesn't do a lot of fighting in the main game, and relies more on stealth to get past enemies. But there are times when he needs to duke it out with enemies when his cover is blown. Much of that is still the exact same in The Order of Giants, but to a lesser extent. The earlier sections of the downloadable content will have Indy sneaking past the Fascist forces that occupy Rome at the time, as well as the cultists that appear deeper into the story, but none of it is unique or different from before. There are no new weapons to use when being stealthy, nor is there anything specific about the cult members that you'll have to do when fighting with them. It's more of the same that Indy is used to.

However, the very last section of the new content has a major encounter with the Nameless Crusader, who is known as Abgal, which acts like a final boss fight. I didn't find this encounter to be too difficult, but it also lacked the extra weight of importance that other major encounters have throughout the main game. Meeting the warrior that was hyped up throughout the DLC seemed like it would have a big payoff to end things on a high note, but ended up being a flop of a climax. I ran around the area throwing spears and removing armor from Abgal, only to do so a few more times before the final cutscenes played. The fight can get difficult if you don't stay ahead of him because he takes out so much health with each hit. But things became far less intimidating when I ran around structures to pick up spears and throw them again before Abgal was brought down.

This wouldn't be so bad if the last things we got to see were treated with more gravitas. Once the battle was over, Indy just went back to Vatican City, and it was like nothing really happened. There's no final monologue or conversation he has with anyone in particular, or anything that gives an allusion to the rest of the main story. I felt underwhelmed when seeing the main title of the downloadable content come up on screen, signifying its conclusion, with the classic Indiana Jones map showing his travels back to Vatican City. It was like what I just played through didn't matter, and I could've skipped over it entirely in favor of the rest of the main story.

It's more Indy if you want it

Nothing about this downloadable content for Indiana Jones And The Great Circle is detrimental to the game as a whole, but it's not a mandatory thing to experience. Whether you've finished the main story of the game, or are still going through it now, The Order of Giants feels like an afterthought. It doesn't significantly change much about the story of Indiana Jones And The Great Circle, nor does it feel like you're doing things that are more important. It's a side quest that feels a bit more glorified than it probably should, even though there are more puzzles that will have you spending more time trying to solve. If you don't pick up this extra DLC for the game, you honestly won't be missing much from Indy's adventure, because I don't feel like I gained much from it.