Bethesda working on Indiana Jones game

MachineGames, part of the Bethesda studios being acquired by Microsoft, is working on an Indiana Jones game. This is done in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games, which was restarted by Disney earlier this week.

Substantive details about the Indiana Jones game have not yet been announced and it is not known when the game will be released. Bethesda says that a game with a new story is being worked on and that Todd Howard is overseeing production. Howard previously directed the production of the Fallout games and the series of The Elder Scrolls games.

Todd Howard with ark in background

Bethesda says it is also collaborating with Lucasfilm Games. On Monday, Disney announced that this brand will be revived and that the brand name will be used again in Star Wars games. Indiana Jones was created by George Lucas and the rights rest with Lucasfilm Games. Presumably the collaboration involves outsourcing the making of the game by Bethesda.

Todd Howard seems to have quietly hinted at the arrival of an Indiana Jones game last year. In a video call with journalist Geoff Keghley in November 2020, a miniature of the ‘ark of the covenant’ could be seen in a cupboard behind Howard. That’s the ark that the Indiana Jones movie Raiders of the Lost Ark is about.

Machine Games takes care of the development of the game. That studio has made a name for itself in recent years with its Wolfenstein games. The most recent of these is Wolfenstein: Youngblood. The studio is part of Bethesda, which is being acquired by Microsoft for $7.5 billion.

The acquisition has yet to be finalized, but once that’s done, the Indiana Jones game could come to Microsoft’s Game Pass right upon release. Microsoft releases all games from its own studios directly with that subscription. It is not yet known when the game will be finished, it will probably take years.