An Indiana Jones & The Great Circle Sequel Could Face One Huge Challenge That Uncharted 2 Never Did -

One of the hits from the end of 2024 was Indiana Jones & The Great Circle. With how well it did and the success it’s experiencing, a sequel seems like a guarantee rather than a guess. While it is not set in stone just yet as it is lacking an official announcement, it is already a big property with plenty of potential for more. However, this sequel will face one challenge that the very similar game series Uncharted did not.

Indiana Jones & The Great Circle’s ending already sparked debates for more content and a potential sequel. However, while that is likely to be a DLC, there is plenty to speculate on as far as where the series will go next. However, that is the big issue with the game as it stands, and a sequel that has to follow it. While the Uncharted series has a lot of similarities, and the two definitely had a hand in inspiring each other, the sequel in that series did not have the same challenge.

Uncharted 2 Had A Huge Opportunity To Improve

The First Game In The Franchise Did Not Have A Large Setting

The original Uncharted game was defining for both the genre and the Naughty Dog studio, but it still felt very confined in terms of the setting. While Nathan Drake is said to be a globetrotting treasure hunter, the game takes place mostly on an island near Panama. He is searching for El Dorado and following the footsteps of Sir Francis Drake.

Kay Vess, character from Uncharted 4 and Indiana Jones

10 Best Games To Play After Indiana Jones & The Great Circle

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle offers players a compelling narrative-driven FPS experience, and, fortunately, there are plenty of games like it.

That game had a strong narrative focus, with a very small setting. Comparatively, the sequel Uncharted 2 had a huge opportunity to expand the world. This made it easy to distinguish it from its predecessor and gave it a lot of variety. The game made other improvements as well, but the expanded setting not only improved upon but set it apart from the first game as well, which was needed to make the game stand out.

Indiana Jones & The Great Circle Already Has Variety

It’s A Fitting Globetrotting Adventure

From the early trailers, it was already known that Indiana Jones & The Great Circle was going to be a game with a large variety in environments. There were maps spreading across the globe, connecting monuments all across the world to each other to form the titular Great Circle. Indy leads the player all around the world, and the Ancient Relic’s secrets hint that the DLC might take Indiana Jones even further abroad.

This was very appropriate, as almost every movie also has Indiana Jones moving all across the globe, to the point where the map with the moving lines showing his travels has become ingrained into the cultural memory. A game without that would have felt lacking, particularly now that game maps are getting bigger instead of smaller.

However, because it already has this great variety and the ability to travel across the globe, the sequel for this game is going to have to figure out a different way to distinguish itself. This is not a bad thing, by any means, but it does mean that the studio might have to get creative to set it apart – something Uncharted 2 didn’t have to do.

A Great Circle Sequel Doesn’t Need To Reinvent The Wheel

New Places Or New Adventures Are Easy To Find

The last thing anyone wants is for the sequel to try to reinvent something that already exists and make it worse. The game does not need much to improve, and the fact that the first game had fans amazed means that they just need to focus on doing things well a second time. A big map doesn’t necessarily have to get bigger, it just needs to be different. Players don’t want to visit the exact same locations again, and luckily, there is a big globe out there to explore.

For instance, while there is a brief tutorial in South America that mirrors the beginning of the first movie, the Americas are largely untouched except for Marshall College. Since the first game focused heavily on the other side of the hemisphere, the second one could focus more on the Americas. There are a lot of potential opportunities there, and it could even hearken back to the Uncharted games. The Indiana Jones franchise has largely stayed away from pirates, but the Caribbean could be a new place to explore with a lot of potential for storytelling.

On the other side of things, there has been a lot of hinting at Indiana Jones’ actions during World War II, without ever actually showing it in film or game. This game does begin to push at the early part of the war before America got involved, but there is potential there. This studio made the modern Wolfenstein games after all, so there is plenty of reason to think they could show Indiana Jones’ time in the special forces during the war as well. Perhaps even playing on the same idea as Monument Men, which had a group of people trying to smuggle historic items away from the Nazis.

Indiana Jones from The Great Circle with Indy and Gina steering a boat in Sukhothai

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Some of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s mysteries are more memorable and rewarding than others, even if all have something to offer.

However, there is also a strong argument for keeping those IPs separate, but it would be a new take on Indiana Jones. While he does fight Nazis in most of the media he has been featured in, a game taking place during the war itself would have different connotations and consequences. Certain subject matter would have to be handled well, and although the developer has the experience to do so, they might not want to. It would be different, which could be advantageous but also always has a lot of risk.

However, there are plenty of other ways the next game could be different. A different “treasure” that Indy is seeking out could lead him anywhere. They could even take the opposite approach and narrow the setting a little, despite that the franchise has always spanned the globe. However, it could help them tell a different kind of story, one that goes deep as opposed to wide.

The key for the sequel is that it needs to be different but not necessarily better. It shouldn’t try to outdo the first game, but rather keep what made it successful and make it feel like a new experience. However, the developers choose to go about it, there is a whole planet full of possibilities for the Indiana Jones & The Great Circle sequel.