Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Switch 2 Graphics Breakdown
My review of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has just wrapped, and what an adventure it was. While the story, gameplay, and audio design blew me away, what I could not fathom was just how good the game looked on Nintendo Switch 2 hardware. It genuinely feels like a new benchmark for what we thought was possible on the system. That made me want to take a closer look at the technology powering the port, and how MachineGames managed to bring such a visually ambitious game to Nintendo’s new hardware while preserving so much of its cinematic presentation. So, gear up as we head off on a technical expedition through the game’s engine, lighting systems, DLSS implementation, and some of the compromises made along the way in our graphics breakdown for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on Nintendo Switch 2.
Before we get too deep into the technical side of things, I should mention that I am still fairly new to doing graphics breakdowns like this. So while I may not be throwing around every technical term under the sun, I will do my best to explain what I am seeing and how some of this technology works as we go along.
The Engine Behind the Adventure
From what we can currently tell, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is the first major game officially confirmed to use MachineGames’ MOTOR engine. MOTOR shares the DNA of id Tech, the same technology family behind modern DOOM and Wolfenstein titles that have built a strong reputation for scalability, optimisation, and technical stability. We have already seen some incredibly impressive ports from this lineage on the original Nintendo Switch through Panic Button’s work on DOOM and Wolfenstein. While Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was handled internally by MachineGames, Panic Button undoubtedly helped establish confidence in just how well ambitious modern engines could scale to Nintendo hardware. id Tech also has a reputation for fast asset streaming, smooth movement, and efficient texture handling, all of which become incredibly important in a cinematic adventure like Indiana Jones. Running that technology on Switch 2 feels like a careful balance between raw hardware capability and the efficiency of the underlying engine itself.
Lighting – The Jewel of The Great Circle
Quite possibly the main reason Indiana Jones and the Great Circle looks so good on Switch 2 is its lighting system, which gives the world a realistic and authentic feel. MachineGames confirmed in an interview with The Verge that the entire experience is built around hardware ray-traced global illumination, meaning lighting is fundamental to how the world is constructed rather than a surface-level effect. On Switch 2, while the exact implementation has not been detailed by the developers, the lighting still appears to be largely intact. The way torchlight fills tombs, how shadows behave in enclosed spaces, and how interiors maintain depth and mood all suggest that the game’s underlying lighting model has been carefully preserved, even if certain settings have likely been scaled to suit the hardware. The lighting does much of the heavy lifting in maintaining the game’s overall presentation. Even where other areas, such as texture detail, shadow quality, or environmental density may be adjusted, the lighting system remains central to how the world is perceived.
DLSS Under the Looking Glass
One of the most important technologies enabling Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on Switch 2 is NVIDIA’s DLSS. The Great Circle has a target output of 1080p when docked and 720p in handheld mode, while maintaining a 30fps target, but MachineGames confirmed in an interview with Nintendo Everything that the game uses DLSS alongside dynamic resolution scaling, allowing the internal resolution to adjust in real time depending on the demands of each scene. Because of this, the game is not always rendering at its full target resolution; instead, it can lower internal resolution during more demanding moments, such as combat or heavy environmental effects, before DLSS reconstructs the image to maintain clarity and readability on screen. This approach helps balance performance while preserving as much visual detail as possible. In calmer exploration scenes, DLSS has more information to work with, which helps the image remain clean and stable. In more action-packed sequences, some softness or reconstruction artefacts can appear, but the system’s primary goal is to maintain consistency rather than perfection.
Performance and Compromises – Stability Over Perfection
On paper, all of this technology is impressive, but the real question is how Indiana Jones and the Great Circle actually performs in motion on Switch 2. Across my time with the game, there were a few areas where frame pacing appeared to be more noticeable, particularly in larger hub environments. The first of these is the Vatican, which serves as one of the largest hub areas in the game. Here, I noticed occasional minor frame pacing dips when moving between major sections of the environment. These moments often felt tied to background streaming and asset loading. There were also small hitches that appeared to align with autosave triggers, something that has been observed across other platforms as well. Despite this, the Vatican holds together surprisingly well overall. The level-of-detail system works effectively in motion, with pop-in and shadow transitions generally blending into the environment rather than becoming distracting.
Moving into Gizeh, the bazaar area showed more noticeable fluctuations during gameplay. This is a much denser environment, with a higher concentration of NPCs, props, and environmental detail. As a result, there were moments of brief stutter, particularly when moving through busier sections. Even so, the area remains largely stable, and DLSS appears to help maintain a consistent presentation during more demanding sequences. The action-heavy segments tend to feel more stable, with DLSS playing a clearer role in maintaining the target performance. During combat and more dynamic encounters, the system helps preserve consistency, even when there’s more happening on screen.
Finally, Sukhothai presents the most challenging environment visually, with dense jungle foliage and layered vegetation. Here, level-of-detail pop-in becomes more noticeable, particularly in foliage assets where geometry and lighting detail appear in stages as the player moves through the environment. First, the base foliage appears, followed by lighting and shading detail resolving shortly after. That said, these compromises are most likely a deliberate trade-off rather than a flaw in execution. During gameplay, they rarely detract from the experience and, in most cases, I would personally take the occasional pop-in over unstable frame pacing or more aggressive performance drops. It feels like a balanced approach between visual fidelity and overall stability, and one that allows the game to maintain its cinematic presentation while still performing reliably on Switch 2 hardware.
A New Benchmark for Switch 2
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle represents an impressive leap in what many would have previously thought possible on Switch 2 hardware. While there are clearly areas where visual compromises have been made, the combination of a scalable engine, DLSS reconstruction, and a lighting system built around modern rendering techniques allows the core experience to remain remarkably intact. If you want to see my full thoughts on the game itself, I’ve just finished my review over on the channel, which goes into the story, gameplay, and overall experience in more detail. It is an exciting time for cross-platform development, and this feels like just the beginning of what we will see from third-party engines on Nintendo’s new system.
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