The upcoming Indiana Jones game was meant to be multiplatform, but it was Bethesda that decided to make it Xbox only claims Microsoft.
It's taken a while but the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)'s legal battle to halt the Microsoft Activision Blizzard deal has finally kicked off. Unsurprisingly, Microsoft is using the opportunity to keep presenting itself as a lowly underdog.
However, the court case looks set to reveal info Microsoft would've preferred to keep to itself. For starters, Bethesda's upcoming Indiana Jones game is officially confirmed to be an Xbox exclusive, even though that wasn't originally the idea.
This may sound obvious given Bethesda's a Microsoft owned company, but it turns out the game was originally slated to be a multiplatform title and this changed following Microsoft's buyout of Bethesda's parent company Zenimax.
Bethesda's head of publishing Pete Hines admits that Zenimax agreed to a deal with Disney to bring the Indiana Jones game to multiple platforms.
Said platforms aren't specified, but it's safe to assume that the PlayStation 5 would've been among them. However, post-Microsoft acquisition, the agreement was amended to make the game Xbox and PC only.
'While it is not in our messaging, I think it is important to highlight that Lucasfilm brought up the issue of platforms because we have a signed agreement with them to develop the game for multiple consoles,' reads an email between multiple executives, including Hines, Xbox boss Phil Spencer, and Xbox Game Studio head Matt Booty (as shared by IGN).
In January 2021, the same month the Indiana Jones game was announced, Spencer wrote, 'The upside here is a game coming from Bethesda that everyone will be excited about. This is the most important thing. The downside for Xbox.is that a large percentage of output from Bethesda won't directly benefit the Xbox community in any way.'
Apparently, Spencer did tell Hines that Bethesda should keep looking at console exclusivity for future titles on a case-by-case basis (something that was promised pre-acquisition). So, why was Indiana Jones made an exclusive?
Hines seems to suggest that this was done to help streamline development and save time since they'd only need to make the game for one console rather than two.
'You're dealing with a licensor who is giving a ton of feedback on what you're making, is going to add a ton of time to your scheduling, these agreements, you don't get to take as long as you want, you have a window of time in which you're going to release a game, you immediately have a clock that's ticking on you,' he says.
He adds that they also liked the idea of bringing Indiana Jones to Game Pass and seeing how many more players they could reach. Although the idea that they want to reach more players but not releasing it on the biggest format is patently absurd.
It's clearly not a decision Bethesda would've made without being bought by Microsoft - no one leaves out a major format without a financial incentive - and it's already been admitted that the original agreement with Disney was to make it a normal multiformat game.
Microsoft has repeatedly insisted that it has no interest in taking games away from rival platforms, yet this is clear evidence showing them doing the exact opposite. It isn't even the first example. Redfall had a PlayStation 5 version in the works too until Microsoft bought Bethesda.
These two clear examples will no doubt be used as ammunition by Sony as to why they feel Microsoft can't be trusted to keep Call Of Duty and other Activision Blizzard games multiformat, despite agreements to do so.
As for the Indiana Jones game itself, all that anyone knows about it is that it's in development at Wolfenstein studio MachineGames. You'd think that an unveil to coincide with the new film Dial Of Destiny would make sense, but so far there's been no clue as to when it will be revealed.
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