Bethesda and MachineGames’ Indiana Jones game was originally going to be a multiplatform release but is now slated to be an Xbox, PC, and Game Pass exclusive. Details on the behind-closed-doors change came from Bethesda head of publishing Pete Hines, who disclosed the information as part of today’s Federal Trade Commission v. Microsoft trial (via IGN). He said that the previous deal with Lucasfilm was to bring the AAA project to other platforms like PlayStation, but the deal was amended following Microsoft’s successful purchase of Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media just a few months later.
When asked why the deal was altered, Hines claimed an interest in “reducing risk and trying to get a degree of clarity.” Essentially, because Indiana Jones is owned by Lucasfilm and Disney, Bethesda has less control over some elements of the game’s development. A lack of control over the Indiana Jones project meant the publisher wanted to minimize risk where it could.
“You’re dealing with a licensor who is giving a ton of feedback on what you’re making, is going to add a ton of time to your scheduling, these agreements, you don’t get to take as long as you want, you have a window of time in which you’re going to release a game, you immediately have a clock that’s ticking on you,” Hines said.
He added: “Truthfully, we also kind of liked the idea of embracing, bringing it to Game Pass and how many players we could get there.”
Before today, we did not know officially which platforms would receive the Indiana Jones game, but since developer MachineGames is part of ZeniMax, which is owned by Microsoft, it seemed pretty likely the game would not be multiplatform. Previously, our single view of the game came during a cinematic teaser that only revealed a look at Indiana’s classic whip. Seeing as the game is coming from the Wolfenstein developer though, we can at least hope to expect more of the punchy combat that the studio is known for. Of course, only those on Xbox and PC will get to experience it when the Indiana Jones game does eventually release at an unspecified point in the future.