Like many others out there, I ran into the problem: can’t start the Indiana Jones Order of the Giants DLC. The priest and his parrot that trigger the start of the mission were nowhere to be found. When I tried my save rollback fix from my original playthrough, things just got worse. The good news is Bethesda support actually helped me with a workaround to finally play the DLC.
Problems Starting Indiana Jones Order of the Giants DLC
When I reinstalled Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, I was happy to see it already start downloading the Order of the Giants DLC. I thought I was going to be able to just play right away. Unfortunately, there was no new quest to begin, indicating the “can’t start” problem.
I already finished the game and went back to the Vatican to complete remaining fieldwork, so I had the prerequisites for the DLC. Having dealt with weird issues with the game save state before, I went back to my tried and true save rollback fix. No luck, in fact, I made things worse.
No matter how many times I tried to rollback, revisiting the Vatican started me at the initial cutscene with Antonio. I knew I was in trouble. After giving him the pendant and taking the priest robes, I tried to go through the motions of the mission.
When I reached the crypt beneath the Vatican library, there was a map I was supposed to pick up from the dead priest; it was not there to pickup, since I already had it. That’s what’s frustrating. Everything was checked off in my journal, but the game state didn’t recognize my progress, making it impossible to start Order of the Giants.
Revisiting other areas, rolling back, rinsing and repeating, all did not help. I bit the bullet and contacted Bethesda support.
Jumping Through the Bethesda Support Hoops
“Did you try restarting your Computer?”. Ok, so to their credit, support did not ask me that cliche line from tech support. I spent a few months working an IT help desk, so I get all the steps troubleshooting requires. Still there was a lot of back and forth.
To their credit, Bethesda support was very responsive. I’m pretty sure there were night and weekend responses. Hours, not days. They were good about not asking me to do the same things over and over. In the end though, I had to record a video of the situation.
Of course that was too big and they couldn’t accept google photos links, so I had to upload it as an unlisted video. You can see that nightmare here, though you probably already see it yourself. That bit of effort paid off though, because that led to them escalating my ticket.
Shout out to Jacob at Bethesda support for finally giving me the steps to allow me to progress right after that escalation.
Indiana Jones Vatican Progress Fix to Play Order of the Giants
The steps Jacob sent me were simple enough. Skip going to the Vatican library basement with Antonio and go take the 4 inscription pictures that would come later in the mission. Then go to the Sacred Mural puzzle and take hint photos there. Simple steps, but there’s no quest or map markers for those – a situation familiar to those who can’t start Order of the Giants properly.
I needed a reminder, so I turned to a youtube walkthrough. When I took the 4th inscription photo, nothing happened. Since I was already following the walkthrough, I returned to Antonio’s office and to my surprise, he was there. It finally let me progress to the next part of the mission.
Protip: if you are following these steps for “can’t start Order of the Giants”, go into settings to turn on the ability to skip cutscenes you have not seen because the game thinks you have not seen these opening cutscenes yet (this will save you some time).
When I studied the photos on the table, they were white. Maybe just a visual glitch or maybe because it’s the 2nd time I’ve taken the same photos. Either way, I was able to just move around them with the magnifying glass until I saw a button prompt to continue on.
I continued on to the Tower of Nicholas V, entered the Underworld and solved the Sacred Wound puzzle. Jesus Saves LOL. After following the walkthrough to get out of the Underworld and speak with Gina, I finally saw the quest marker for “A Mystery Begins”.
As soon as I could move, I went straight to where Father Ricci and his Parrot Pio were waiting for me, finally.
The Order of the Giants Awaits
After all the difficulty trying to even start Order of the Giants DLC, I jumped right in. As of writing this, I’ve already played and completed the DLC. It was worth the trouble and I hope it’s not the last DLC (sequels take a long time). I’d also love if Bethesda would fix the progress issue that prevented me from starting it, without my workaround.
It was about an hour worth of extra effort (not counting the back/forth with support). I think everyone can agree that this workaround is still preferable to having to wait for a patch to fix this issue (if they ever do), or worse, starting over.
I hope this helps someone else struggling like I did. If you can’t start Order of the Giants DLC, let me know in comments if simply taking all the pictures does the trick for you. My method might have been longer than necessary. You might help even more people with a shorter method.