At the beginning of this week, Disney introduced its new Lucasfilm Games branding, accompanied by a sizzle reel highlighting recent Star Wars titles. Similar to Marvel Games, Lucasfilm Games will serve as a label for all future titles based on Lucasfilm IP. Not the most exciting news, but it hinted at a future involving games based on Lucasfilm properties developed by studios not owned by EA, the publisher which has held the exclusive rights to make Star Wars games, to mixed results.
We still don’t know what Lucasfilm Games means for future Star Wars games. But yesterday we got a different announcement: a new Indiana Jones title from Bethesda-owned studio Machine Games, developer of the recent Wolfenstein games. You can watch a brief (not particularly informative) teaser trailer below.
— Bethesda (@bethesda) January 12, 2021
Bethesda shared the game would have an original story and be executive produced by Todd Howard in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games but admit that it’ll be some time before they’re able to offer more details.
Nevertheless, the news is very exciting. Two major video game properties, Tomb Raider and Uncharted, clearly draw inspiration from the iconic series, but we’ve never seen a big-budget action-adventure video game starring Indiana Jones himself. Machine Games is widely acclaimed for its work on Wolfenstein, so Lucasfilm Games put the franchise in good hands.
Perhaps the biggest question is whether the Indiana Jones game will be an Xbox exclusive since Microsoft recently acquired Bethesda for a reported $7.5 billion. If Lucasfilm Games approached Bethesda before the acquisition the contract likely specified that the game will come to both consoles. Lucasfilm Games hasn’t shared what platforms the game is being developed for, so we’ll have to wait and see if Indiana Jones will be an Xbox exclusive or if it will release on PlayStation, as well.
