Bethesda has confirmed that its upcoming Indiana Jones game currently in development at Wolfenstein studio MachineGames will be Xbox and PC exclusive. The game was originally announced in January 2021 but we’ve heard little about it since its initial reveal trailer. It seems like the game won’t be heading to PlayStation platforms after all as Bethesda says it helps streamline the development process.
Speaking in court during the opening day of Microsoft’s ongoing legal case with the Federal Trade Commission yesterday, Bethesda head of publishing Pete Hines was asked by lawyers to confirm if Disney has signed an agreement with parent company Zenimax to make the Indiana Jones game available on multiple consoles, to which he responded, “Yes.” Following Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda, Hines was asked again if Disney had brought up the issue of which consoles the game would be released on, to which he replied, “Yes.”
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Hines later confirmed that Bethesda had amended the Disney agreement, stating that Indiana Jones will be an Xbox and PC exclusive now, as well as a day one release on Xbox Game Pass. In his defence, Hines explained, “You go to fewer platforms, your development gets more streamlined. It just needs to run as well as possible on one box, on PC. You know, a narrow focus always helps.”
This is apparently the reason why Bethesda and Xbox chose to make the Indiana Jones game an exclusive: to help streamline the game’s development process for one (or two) specific platforms. That said, it’s been over two years since we last heard about the game and it’s unknown how far along it currently is in development.
Hines spoke more candidly about this decision later, stating:
“The primary one in my view is what I said about reducing risk and trying to get to a degree of certainty. You’re dealing with a licensor who’s going to have a ton of feedback on what you’re making, add a lot of time to your schedule, you’re required to provide a release window. You immediately have a clock that’s ticking. We liked the idea of bringing it to Game Pass and all the players we could reach there.”
Hines added that if Starfield was also released on other platforms, it would not be able to meet its current September release date. “In my opinion, no, this game would not be coming out in 9 weeks if we were supporting an entirely different platform,” said the Bethesda executive.
Source: Video Games Chronicle
