Bethesda’s Indiana Jones game is Xbox exclusive, Pete Hines reveals

Bethesda Softworks’ upcoming Indiana Jones game is exclusive to Xbox consoles and PC, head of publishing Pete Hines said during the Microsoft and Activision Blizzard Federal Trade Commission hearing on Thursday. Xbox Game Pass will also be available when the game launches.

Bethesda announced the project’s development in 2021, just months after Microsoft announced its acquisition of ZeniMax Media (of which Bethesda is under) in a $7.5 billion deal. The deal was completed in March of 2021. Machinegames, responsible for the most recent Wolfenstein games, is developing the game under Disney’s Lucasfilm Games label. At that time, no release date or platform was disclosed. The new details on Indiana Jones’ platform exclusivity were revealed during Hines’ testimony in San Francisco court.

Hines revealed that ZeniMax’s original agreement with Disney would have put the Indiana Jones game on multiple consoles. After Microsoft’s acquisition of ZeniMax was announced, Disney had “questions” regarding console exclusivity, despite the signed agreement, the FTC lawyer added. Hines confirmed the contract later was changed to make Indiana Jones a Xbox-exclusive.

Hines added later that Bethesda had signed an agreement with Disney Then,Microsoft’s acquisition. He said that Bethesda was an independent publisher that “couldn’t afford to miss” while it “fighting publishers that are multiple times larger.” He confirmed that Disney wanted the reach to be “as large as possible,” and that Bethesda felt it had to meet that need.

You can also read our article on AfterMicrosoft’s acquisition changed that. Hines said there were several different reasons for that change — including the idea of how many players it would bring to Xbox Game Pass. Microsoft and Bethesda are also looking to “reduce risk” around meeting the demands of the licensor. Hines related this back to a topic he discussed earlier regarding the “irresponsibly large game” where Bethesda was benefited by being able to support the game on fewer platforms.

Last year, Todd Howard, who will executive produce the game, called the Indiana Jones game a “bucket list” project. The film franchise’s popularity is undeniable, but there’s been little as of late in the way of Indiana Jones video games, save the Lego adaptations, the last of which was released in 2009. The same year. Indiana Jones and The Staff of Kings Released on Wii, PlayStation 2, and Xbox 360