Indiana Jones And The Great Circle: The Order Of Giants DLC Review
[Music] What’s going on everybody? Mortem here. This time bringing you my DLC review for Indiana Jones and the Great Circles, the Order of the Giants DLC, which I am taking a look at because if you’re unaware, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is honestly a fantastic adventure game. And like a lot of people, I had been waiting for the DLC actually. So, important to mention straight away, I did not receive a review key or anything from this. In fact, when Indiana Jones initially launched all the way back in December of last year, 2024, I had actually picked up the uh premium edition, I believe it’s called, because I figured I would potentially wind up covering this DLC, and here we are. So, that’s how I got a hold of it. And that DLC launched in full yesterday, which is how I’m bringing you this video. This, like many games, DLC launches is accompanied by a free patch for the base game alongside the DLC itself. So, first we’re going to quickly run through that patch. I believe it is officially known as update 5. And while it is primarily focused on like fixes and bugs and stuff like that, it also does actually add quite a few things to the game. Most notably, the addition of a very light combat mode, a very light action difficulty. That is basically meaning that combat on that mode will be very easy for the people who just purely want to focus on the puzzles and stuff as much as possible. This update also added a new rayraced hair feature that they’ve been showing off online here and there. Uh it’s honestly not super noteworthy, but there if you like that kind of thing, I guess they also uh padded out the radio a little bit. Strangely enough, in both the Marshall College and Vatican areas, you can find radios and turn them on if you didn’t know. there are uh more voices talking there as well as the ability for the radio sets will actually like broadcast events from around the game’s world now. So, thought that was a bit of an interesting thing. The other big change they mentioned was a small UI update that’s actually pretty helpful. Basically, when you swap out uh uniforms and things like that as you’re playing through the game, the UI will basically tell you if you’re about to be in an outfit that is considered restricted for the area you are actually in, making that a little more intuitive. The rest of the free update patch was basically just stuff you would expect. Bug fixes, things like that. A few changes to some stuff here and there. They added a couple oneliners when you knock enemies out, that kind of thing. But from there, let’s actually talk about the DLC itself. First and foremost, how to start it. So, the DLC begins in the Vatican City or the first explorable area that you have access to. It does appear that there is a minimum amount of story progression required even after you get to the Vatican. because I tried this from both the beginning and then uh loading up a previous save and just sort of teleporting back to it. Even once you get to the Vatican on a new run, the quest to begin this is not immediately there. I’m not exactly sure when it shows up, but I’m thinking it might be when you’ve actually cleared the main adventure for the Vatican first, as that is about the time you start learning about the giants and how they influence the story here. So, I think that would probably make the most sense. So, you’re either going to have to progress the main story a little farther than you might initially think, or uh if you already have a previous save, what you have to do is go to the travels menu and travel back to the Vatican, which you can do freely to explore, and then it should be there ready and waiting for you. But basically, you have to go talk to this priest with a bright green parrot that in short order wraps you up into his search for this nameless crusader thought to be an absolute giant of a man. he’d like more information about him, and you, obviously being Indiana Jones, are going to help him get that information. A short quest later, you find yourself embroiled in dangerous events in the city of Rome. In particular, you’re going to be exploring a depiction of some of the events surrounding Emperor Nero, a creepy cult that has taken over a portion of the sewers with plenty of puzzles and mysteries to boot. Now, much of what this is is an extension of the main game’s mechanics. like there’s nothing that I would consider truly new here. In fact, as an example of this, uh, one of the only updates to like actual uh, like combat abilities or the skills you can learn by picking up adventure books are the two books that are added by this DLC that allow you to get a buff when you eat either bread or fruit, as an example. Beyond those upgrades, it’s pretty much just an extension of the regular gameplay and everything, which is probably going to be great if you enjoyed the base game, but if that didn’t do anything for you, this DLC isn’t likely to change your mind, I think. And so, while I don’t really want to get into the story of this too much, there are some other things I want to talk about. For starters, uh the story, the length of this DLC isn’t like terribly long. It depends a little bit on how much you’re exploring and you know of course how much of the sort of side contents and collectibles you feel like tracking down, but I would say probably like four to six hours for most people is where this is going to fall if you were just like strictly following the objectives to get through the story. Like maybe even two to three if you’re just after the main story experience there. So, not a particularly long one. And while I was initially excited that they were going to bring this new open area of Rome to the game, I was a little disappointed in its implementation here. Um, in fact, I would say probably like 60 or 70% of this DLC takes place in the sewers of Rome, which does have some interesting moments with some big like setpiece areas and some interesting puzzles that I think were actually fun to solve. Now, for much of it, you are uh just fighting the same people you were fighting in the Vatican, which is Mussolini’s fascist. Not long after you enter the sewer, you start encountering this strange and mysterious group known as the cult of Mithris, who are most certainly involved in whatever else is going on here. As you and Father Reichi try to get to the bottom of everything. Interestingly enough, the game does end with a proper boss fight, which I thought was an interesting choice given a game like this, but I did enjoy it. I will say the wrap-up of this individual side story as well as that boss fight I thought were actually pretty cool. is probably worth a mention that while the story and everything does kind of expand upon the idea of giants presented in the main game. It’s also like a separate story at the same time. So, you’re just kind of exploring some of these ancient giant orders you’ll hear about as you play through that main story, but it’s not wildly important to the main game anyway. For the most part, it is like a standalone little side story that’s an interesting read. Otherwise though, I would say much of this DLC is basically like a microcosm of a lot of the stuff that worked in the main game. The really fun puzzles that’ll give you like hints and everything via your camera and whatnot. Creepy, cryptic cults that are interesting to parse out and kind of figure out what they’re all about. The story is well presented. It is fun to explore and of course use things like your outfits to get into places, sail the Tyber River, that kind of thing. So, starting to put that together basically, I would say that if you enjoyed the main game, which a lot of people did, you’ll probably enjoy the DLC as an experience. But I will say at the same time, it’s not really as good as I was hoping it would be. Mostly because it is again very short. Uh, the open areas are very small and you’re mostly like underground exploring the sewer system. And when you say you’re going to explore Rome, I don’t really expect to spend like 70% of that in the sewer. And while I realize with a game like this, I think it would be probably kind of difficult to add like wholesale new mechanics for this experience. I do think it is a bit of a bummer that, you know, completing the DLC doesn’t give you like skins or cosmetics for the outfits and the whips like you can get elsewhere, as an example. And for some of those reasons, I think this DLC has a much harder time of justifying its cost of $20 if you buy it outright. Now, strangely enough, if you buy the premium edition, which is like a $100 without it being on sale or anything, uh 30 of that is actually the DLC and art book, as well as that Temple of Doom outfit. So, if all you cared about was the DLC, you would have gotten a better deal by initially just buying the base game version and then buying this DLC standalone, like right now, which I thought was a bit of an odd case. But it doesn’t really change the fact that uh ultimately I think $20 for this DLC is a bit pricey for what you’re getting. Now, I can understand why they charge that. You know, things like new assets, all that stuff. Eventually, there is like a minimum for it, but honestly, I think like $10 or $15 probably would have been better for this overall. And while the experience is good, I mean, at this point, this game’s been out for almost a year, a few months shy of that. And I would be very surprised if this wasn’t on like the Steam winter sale later on. And so if you’re not in a hurry, I feel like you’d probably just wind up feeling better about waiting on it a bit because ultimately, while it is a good expansion in the sense that it continues a lot of what was great about the base game, it also just really doesn’t quite justify that price tag in my opinion. which is ultimately why I would say for most you probably just want to catch this on a sale with like the base game if you haven’t played it already or if you don’t like own the premium edition or something from when the game launched as an example but ultimately it’s also not prohibitively expensive or anything and if you enjoyed the base game I imagine you’ll likely enjoy this as well and so ultimately that decision is going to be up to you but as a recommendation I would probably just hold off on this one which I think is probably as good a place as any to wrap up this particular review. So, I certainly hope you enjoyed it. If you did, by all means, like, comment, subscribe, all that YouTube jazz. If you did wind up playing this one, I’d love to know what you think about it down in the comments section below. But regardless of any of that, truly, just thank you so much for watching. I really do appreciate it. May you wander in wisdom and have an amazing day. [Music]
Taking a look at the story DLC for one of the best titles from 2024, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which doesn’t quite live up to the base game.
Intro Music By Juan Andrés Matos, http://www.juanmatosmusic.com/
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