Indiana Jones And the Great Circle redefines the gun-toting archaeologist as a grabby Lucasfilm fanboi

Hands-on time

Image credit:Microsoft

Going by three hours with a preview build last month, the Indiana Jones of Indiana Jones And The Great Circle has the hungriest hands this side of Thief 2014 . They’re always surging into view, reaching restlessly toward objects as you explore, for there is ever so much to touch: photos and letters; pipes, frying pans, and other blunt implements; relics that translate into “Adventure Points”, used to “unlock” books of skills; camouflaged levers and other chunks of fusty comicbook exotica that harbour clockwork secrets. Sometimes, Indy’s magic fingers help you glean an object you need from the game’s religiously-sourced piles of Lucasfilm memorabilia. Sometimes, they exhaust you: please, Dr Jones, for the love of George. Stop trying to pick things up. Let me look at “ancient history” for a while.

The game’s almost sensual need to lay Indy’s mitts on everything says a lot about Indiana Jones as a character who figures things out as he bumps into them. It also speaks to The Great Circle’s unsurprising and rather numbing portrayal of “history” as a collectible commodity, but let’s not get too self-righteous straight off the bat. Let’s start with Indy himself.

The original Harrison Ford character from the 1980s is one of the great comedic improvisers - not quite up there with Jackie Chan or Charlie Chaplin, but streets ahead of James Bond and his pocketful of Chekov’s gadgets. Indiana Jones action scenes are all loosely coordinated blundering about and miraculous accidents - slumping bodies turning parked planes into rotating death traps, childish fake-outs and fistfuls of thrown sand, John Rhys-Davies punching a guy through a newspaper . Making do with what’s immediately at hand is the name of the game, and this is broadly how MachineGames want you to approach the Nazis in The Great Circle.

Above all, this comes across in the scarcity of permanent equipment, which might shock a player arriving fresh from the developer’s previous Wolfenstein shooters. Indiana Jones isn’t really an equipment guy, as you’ll learn when you pack his suitcase for him during the prologue, shortly after a bruising encounter with an oversized museum robber. He has a couple of stand-bys: his whip, used to snare ankles and swing from highlighted surfaces, and his pistol, for which he seldom has enough bullets. Beyond that, he’ll make do with whatever’s available: a broken bottle, an ornamental goblet, a metal fly swatter, a broom, anything with a handle and enough heft to break a bone.

Image credit:Microsoft

All these items are thoroughly disposable, typically shattering after one or two swings, and freeing your hands to grab something else in the next room along. Often, of course, you’ll rely on Indy’s fists: he can parry, counter, jab and haymaker. But in the absence of self-replenishing health, he’s just brittle enough that, more often than not, you’ll want to open a punch-up by rudely hurling a roll of bandage, or deleting one of the brawnier sluggers with a sledgehammer.

These freestyle exchanges are the heart of a game that, as with the developer’s Wolfenstein shooters, sometimes feels like it wants to be an immersive sim. There’s an alleyway in Rome where you have a choice of higher or lower routes past patrolling blackshirts. You can creep up and knock people out, hide bodies, eavesdrop on chatter about Mussolini, and find keys for side areas harbouring collectibles. Later, a relatively sprawling Gizeh map lets you roam between excavation sites, tent cities and Nazi encampments, speaking to various NPCs and completing main and optional quests in any order. It’s the basis for a collection of miniature scenarios that might see you briefly donning a disguise, or searching for a hidden crawlspace after buying a key item from the market down the road. But these flourishes never quite go full Dishonored , and the game’s love of improvising with randomly grabbed tools is more compelling when it’s the basis for slapstick comedy.

I spent five minutes in one particular Egyptian tomb having a pipe-throwing contest with a single Nazi soldier on a gantry. It was all very Naked Gun . I kind of liked that shrieky little goosestepper. I don’t speak German, but it sounded like he was enjoying it too. I could have just shot him, I guess, but The Great Circle’s shooting feels deliberately awful. Indy’s pistol has a sparky cowboy charm, but it’s mostly a difficulty modifier, drawn whenever you can’t be arsed to fight “properly” . You can also scoop up dropped firearms such as rifles and machineguns, but Indiana is no BJ Blaskowitz, and that gun will be tossed aside the instant you empty the magazine.

With allowances for this being a preview build with wobbly AI, the enemies don’t seem tuned for shoot-outs either. Guards who make for serviceable melee opponents lose all conviction under fire: they bumble around in your sluggish crosshairs, seldom taking cover. Again, I think this is more deliberate than not: the shooting is being framed as a point of last resort. Whenever I laid hands on an MP35 or whatever, I always felt like the Nazis were slightly embarrassed for me. But then I’d find another frying pan, and all would be well.

I don’t get the sense that the game’s unlockable skills will alter these rhythms much. So far, I’ve seen a lot of boring passive boosts, like weapons taking longer to break or more health, though there’s the odd goofy power-up, like being able to revive from KO if you can crawl over to your dropped fedora. This last skill involves a cutscene where Indy dusts himself off, that famous smirk slowly emerging from the corner of his scowl. It’s even funnier when the Nazi jarhead who flattened you is still spacing out in the background, but again, this could be a quirk of the preview build.

Indy’s kleptomania in The Great Circle feels true to the character, then. It’s less convincing when it comes to interactions with other characters, which give rise to some familiar ludonarrative disconnects. At one point in my hands-on, I met up with a friendly archaeologist who was trying to thwart Nazi looting of the local historical sites. “Soon, there will be no trace of history left in this place,” she mourned, as I absent-mindedly roved her tent stuffing pieces of Ancient Egyptian stoneware into my trousers. In the process, I got my hands on one of her own drawings, a tender pencil portrait of a woman. Surely this, at least, was an act of petty pillage too many? “Just a little sketch I made,” the character blithely declared, without even looking. “Take it if you like.” The drawing disappeared into my inventory along with all my other plunder, and obligingly converted itself into points.

Image credit:Microsoft

In general, The Great Circle’s world feels like the usual triple-A compromise of impossible sheen at the price of a certain liveliness. Having left my friend the archaeologist, I walked into a bazaar on the Gizeh map and experimented with whipping the air. The whipcrack reverberated like a thunderclap through the crowded stalls, but the locals paid no attention. This is perhaps the nearest blockbuster games come to punishing the dick-swinging western protagonists they inflict on exoticised colonial settings. You don’t even get called a bloody tourist - you just get politely treated like a ghost.

At times, Indy’s constant need to pick stuff up feels like a caricature for The Great Circle’s own, insatiably fanboi approach to both the films it’s based on and the times and places they themselves portray. Everything from Harrison Ford’s smirk to the clownish paf of Jonesian fist on Third Reich jaw has been reverentially looted from the archives and wedded to a bunch of seeming 3D renders of real-life museum artefacts, whose precise roots I’d love to trace.

The presentation is handsome and glossy enough that it’s easy to forget that you’re engaging with a set of nested, smashed-together influences: a 2024 video game romanticising of a 1980s film romanticising of 1930s film romanticisings of various “lost” cultures, updated with recourse to latter-day imaging techniques and asset libraries. It is memorabilia tucked within memorabilia, a commodification of commodification. It’s enough to give you vertigo.

Sometimes, the game makes a show of asking you to think critically about the origins of all these things, rather than encouraging you to pick stuff up willy-nilly. The very first puzzle, in fact, is about identifying museum relics scattered across the floor and restoring them to their cases. It’s a fun early twist: having barely shown you the ropes of combat and movement, The Great Circle suddenly needs you to recognise cuneiform writing and distinguish between photographs of Syrian and Iraqi archaeological sites. As you explore later levels, you’ll also scrape together a journal’s worth of sketches, scribbled objectives and photographs taken using Indy’s nicely clattery camera, but this mostly just feels like a glorified codex screen, with some hints about optional secrets.

At the risk of sounding both pious and naive, the museum curator puzzle could have been an opportunity to get away from the grabby fannishness on show elsewhere. It could have been a chance to break down and think about the pulpy colonial history-making of Indiana Jones movies - the stories behind the props and puzzles these stories use to define and structure the “ancient cultures” they reduce to boxes of traps and treasure.

I don’t think this is wholly unrealistic, or just a demand to make statements at the cost of the Fun. It’s the kind of self-referentiality you find in MachineGames’ Wolfenstein projects, which manage to be silly, brainless shooters whilst also being chaotic feats of historical recombination. Imagine the satirical energy that went into that all-American Nazi high street from The New Colossus being applied to Indy temple tropes, such as golden heads on pressure plates or using the sun’s rays on a hidden door. I think that could be Fun. Still, this kind of gambit isn’t really the agenda of a blockbuster licensed game: the point is to polish up the relics and put them on display. You could at least let me smash one over a Nazi’s head, mind.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC , Nintendo Switch 2

Rock Paper Shotgun is better when you sign in

Sign in and join us on our journey to discover strange and compelling PC games.

All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

Rock Paper Shotgun is better when you sign in

Sign in and join us on our journey to discover strange and compelling PC games.