Since its inception, Bethesda’s MachineGames has worked almost exclusively on theWolfensteinfranchise, rebooting the series for modern audiences and earning rave reviews in the process. However, MachineGames is going in a different direction with its next game. Bethesda has officially announced that MachineGames is working on a brand newIndiana Jonesvideo game with a completely original story.
Bethesda made the announcement with a short teaser trailer that shows the titularIndiana Jones' desk, along with various artifacts and items associated with the character, including his iconic whip and hat. The teaser ends with Indy grabbing his hat, presumably to run off to his MachineGames-developed adventure. Whether or not Indy will be fighting Nazis like he has in the movies remains to be seen, but it would make sense considering MachineGames' work on theWolfensteinseries. Unfortunately, no gameplay footage was revealed in the teaser trailer, but Bethesda did follow up on the surprise announcement with a couple of other details.
RELATED:Archaeologist Says Lara Croft a ‘Thief’, Indiana Jones is ‘Unethical’
In a follow-up tweet, Bethesda confirmed that theIndiana Jonesvideo game from MachineGames will be executive produced by Todd Howard, who has spearheaded Bethesda’sElder ScrollsandFalloutefforts for decades. Not only that, but the game is being developed in collaboration with LucasfilmGames, the recently revealed video game label that will be handling gaming projects based on Lucasfilm properties. Bethesda also stressed that it will be “some time” before it has any more to reveal about the new game.
Since theLucasfilmGames announcementhappened on the officialStar Warswebsite, it was presumed by many that the label would be primarily focused on upcomingStar Warsvideo game projects. Considering this, many online are surprised to learn that its first project is actually a newIndiana Jonesgame. It will definitely be interesting to see what form this game takes, so hopefully the developers have more to share sooner rather than later.
In the meantime, this new collaboration between Bethesda and LucasfilmGames could be a good indication of what fans can expect from the company after it’s acquired by Microsoft. Unless something goes astray,Microsoft’s acquisition of ZeniMax Media, and therefore Bethesda and its studios, is expected to be finalized this year. This means that theIndiana Jonesvideo game could technically fall under the Xbox Game Studios umbrella, though it seems unlikely that such a project would end up being Xbox-exclusive.
This could be taken as a sign that Bethesda fans don’t have to worry about its games being full-blown Xbox exclusives. However, it has been said in the past thatBethesda games will either be timed-exclusives for Xboxor will perform best on Xbox. Of course, since this deal is being made before the Microsoft acquisition has gone through, it’s possible that it is not impacted at all and will be freely available on whatever platforms Bethesda and Lucasfilm Games have agreed upon. Ultimately, all fans can do is speculate until more concrete information is available.
