Despite being a huge fan of the Indiana Jones film trilogy (what a relief that they stopped after three and never made another Indy film again), I missed The Great Circle when it first launched on Xbox in 2024 and then on PS5 in 2025. So yes, I was more than a little excited when Bethesda and MachineGames popped up at last year’s Gamescom Opening Night Live to reveal that Switch 2 would be getting in on the fun as well.
With the port’s 12th May release date rolling ever closer, I’ve gone hands-on with its opening couple of chapters to see how the adventure holds up on the comparatively smaller, handheld hardware. The good news is that the adventure is every bit as (whip) cracking as I’d hoped, full of series charm, quality visuals, and mostly performing well under the pressure.
For those who don’t know, this is an original Indy adventure set between Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade that sees ol’ Henry Jones Jr. set out on yet another globe-trotting adventure. This time, it’s spurred on by the theft of Indy’s mummified cat relic, forcing him out of his college and charting a red line to the Vatican and beyond. There are web-covered tombs, there are ancient Latin puzzles, there are waves of Nazis waiting to get their noses bopped. It’s a new Indy film, but you’re playing it this time.
The big talking point back in 2024 was that the vast majority of this takes place in first-person. Voice acting’s golden child, Troy Baker, provides the voice and motion capture for our be-hatted hero (everyone at launch was right on the money, the performance really is exceptional), but for the most part you’ll only see that iconic silhouette in… err… silhouette — torch-lit shadows, etcetera. Excluding cutscenes and certain environmental interactions, all we really see of Indy is his raised fists and whatever makeshift weapon they happen to be holding.
All anyone could talk about two years ago was whether the game would be better served in third-person (it’s a tired debate at this point, but one on which I fall firmly on the ‘yes’ side), but the perspective has another effect on Switch 2 in that I was much more attuned to the game’s performance. There’s something about not having a character in the middle of the screen that makes everything else all the more eye-catching.
MachineGames has developed The Great Circle to contain “a dynamic mix of linear, narrative-driven gameplay and open-area maps”, and I’ve been able to get up close with both of them in the slice I’ve played so far. Unsurprisingly, the more linear aspects hold up much better on Switch 2, with only the occasional dropped frame here and there, but nothing to detract from the game itself, which consistently looks beautiful.
The open areas are a slightly different story. I was ready to describe The Great Circle as “a miracle port” on my journey to Vatican City (the game’s first open zone), but as soon as I stepped out of the Castel Sant’Angelo and into the NPC-filled Belvedere Courtyard, I was forced to temper my expectations a little.
To be clear, this is no performance nightmare in any sense — given how jam-packed the area is, I was thrilled to see it running on Switch 2 at all — but frame rate drops became a lot more consistent as I ran through the intertwined city streets, and I could feel the resolution playing catch-up, with environmental textures frequently hopping into detail the longer I looked at them.
My preview time only let me see the first of these open areas, so there’s no telling whether Gizeh, the Himalayas, Sukhotai, and others will fare the same, but it stands to reason that a consistent 30fps will be reserved for the more straightforward sequences, with things getting a little choppier in open waters.
But I really must stress that this is far from game-breaking. It continues the trend we’ve seen with other early Switch 2 ‘next-gen’ ports like Star Wars Outlaws and Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, where, sure, the cutbacks are noticeable compared to more powerful hardware, but the trade-off is a feature-complete game that you can play on the go.
And when The Great Circle works, it really works. The game is gorgeous on Switch 2, full of staggeringly detailed vistas and impressively lifelike character models. I dare you to pick up a candle in this game and watch as the little flame flickers depending on the speed of your walk without a smile creeping onto your face.
Docked play is the way to go for the full cinematic experience, of course (you can even play the whole thing in a “cinematic” 21:9 ratio, if you’re a real aficionado), but I’ve been impressed with how nice it looks in Handheld, too.
It has been one of those preview periods where, wrapping things up, all I wanted to do was keep playing. The performance in larger areas puts a small downer on things — perhaps there’s room for further optimisation pre- or post-launch — but on the whole, everything I’ve seen so far suggests Switch 2 will be a perfectly solid place to experience The Great Circle for the first time, or as a return player hankering for some Indy on the go.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go and research this odd little curio called ‘Kingdom of the Crystal Skull‘, that appeared when I googled the game title…
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle arrives on Switch 2 on 12th May for £59.99 / $69.99, and there’s a full-cart physical edition inbound, too.
Will you be checking this one out on Switch 2 next month? Crack your whip in the comments below.
