Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s Nintendo Switch 2 port is finally here and it holds up pretty well

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s long-awaited Nintendo Switch 2 port has finally arrived, and I’m pleased to report it’s pretty good.

Bethesda Softworks has a spotty history with Switch 2 ports. In December, we got a sluggish Skyrim launch that was eventually made much better with updates to latency and performance modes. February’s Fallout 4 port, by comparison, was a stunner thanks to ambitious framerate targets and solid image quality. MachineGames’ first-person adventure presents a daunting set of challenges due to its current-gen nature and a cinematic presentation that made good use of recent graphical features. Once again, however, Nintendo’s hybrid console demonstrates that she’s got it where it counts, kid. (Harrison Ford transcends franchises!)

Targeting 1080p when docked and 720p in handheld mode, Indy’s adventure retains the basic visual appearance as seen on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S in late 2024. To me, the more obvious cuts are shadow quality, draw distance for smaller objects, and the absence of top-end ray tracing – it’s unclear what the global lighting solution is here. But it’s otherwise a detailed conversion, with character models and interior scenes in particular being impressive. If this is how you’ll experience The Great Circle for the first time, know that you’re not getting a watered-down version of it. It’s just a shame the Order of the Giants DLC is being sold separately.

Performance holds steady at 30 frames-per-second, which is more than enough for a game that’s generally slow-paced, although split-second drops during shot changes in cutscenes and loading hiccups while traversing busier areas like The Vatican might annoy some players. The Switch 2 does have a hard time sometimes, even with the invaluable help of DLSS upscaling. On that note, in portable play, the final image output is softer, with some finer details and texture clarity taking hits. But motion blur, sharpening options, and the smaller screen help mask this.

Those who enjoy it when third-party ports for Nintendo consoles have their own control quirks will also be happy to hear that gyro controls – which I personally dislike, but here they do what they’re meant to do – and Joy-Con 2 mouse functionality are in. The ability to mouse-aim is especially impressive, making the collection of smaller items and well-calculated throws more fluid. In other games, I found it to be sluggish, with the exception of Metroid Prime 4, but even at 30 FPS, the implementation here is smooth and responsive. I think it’s worth a try.

Alongside Cyberpunk 2077, Star Wars Outlaws, and Resident Evil Requiem, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is one of the stronger third-party efforts I’ve seen on Switch 2. It’s yet more proof that Nintendo’s current-gen hardware can punch above its weight and even improve on Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s wobbly handheld PC performance thanks to a DLSS crutch and fresh optimisations.