For several months now, it has been something of an assumed fact that Bethesda’s new Indiana Jones game – which is still in the early stages of development – will be an Xbox exclusive. While this does seem rather obvious when you consider the fact that the developer behind the game is now Microsoft-owned, it’s not a detail that anyone has explicitly confirmed through official channels yet. However, in a recent interview, Disney’s head of gaming Sean Shoptaw seems to double down on this Xbox exclusivity, stating that the decision itself “made sense at the time”. So, with Indiana Jones all-but-confirmed to be only available on Xbox, surely Arkane Lyon’s new Blade game is getting the same treatment.
For fans of Lucasfilm’s Indiana Jones franchise, a new Indiana Jones game from Bethesda aligned studio MachineGames – the Swedish developer behind the Wolfenstein series – is very exciting. When you think about all the new Xbox games on the way, this is definitely among the most interesting – although, PS5 players may have to look elsewhere for their next hit of adventure. We’re not sure what flavor of game this will be just yet, but it could very-well be one of the best FPS games out there when it arrives if MachineGames uses its learnings from Youngblood and Cyberpilot more directly. Although, with lecturer and archaeologis Indiana Jones an adventurer at heart, we could quite easily see this among the best open world games available on Xbox when it drops. Surely, any game based on Indiana Jones would need to preserve the sense of exploration and discovery that permeates the movies from Stephen Spielberg (and, more recently, James Mangold).
Either way, whichever genre of game this ends up being eventually, it’s becoming more and more clear that the only place to play it will be Xbox.
In an interview with Axios’ Stephen Totilo, Shoptaw explains that “with Xbox still being one of the bigger marketplaces for games, we didn’t feel like we were going to be overly exclusionary” by making Indiana Jones an Xbox exclusive title. “We felt like it’s still going to reach a broad set of folks, and we felt, financially and strategically for the game, that made sense at the time.”
This statement, rather interestingly, does two things; not only does it reaffirm rumors and comments made by other industry individuals that Indiana Jones is indeed going to be only available on Xbox in lieu of official confirmation, but it also suggests that Disney doesn’t actually think it needs the sales the game would make on PlayStation consoles. Of course, we don’t know how well an Indiana Jones game would sell exactly, but a huge portion of the market for videogames is made up of PlayStation players – and we can imagine quite a few of those PlayStation players are Indiana Jones fans, too.
These comments from Shoptaw shore up statements from Bethesda’s former head of publishing Pete Hines who, as reported by IGN earlier in the year, also seemed to suggest that the new Indiana Jones game was an Xbox exclusive and coming to Xbox Game Pass on Day One. Bethesda’s only official announcement regarding this title, though, does not mention any platforms and we still haven’t seen this confirmed through official channels – as likely as it seems.
What does this all have to do with Arkane Lyon’s new Blade game, though? Well, if Disney is confident that an Indiana Jones game will perform well enough as an Xbox exclusive, then it’s surely going to be equally as confident that a Marvel game (which is also Disney owned) would similarly perform well enough as an Xbox exclusive. If anything, despite Harrison Ford’s return as Indiana Jones in the Dial of Destiny, Blade is still a more popular character in popular culture and thus – logically – a name that would sell more games. Marvel Studios is also still working on a Blade movie starring Mahershala Ali, too – whereas it looks like Harrison Ford is finally hanging up his whip and fedora.
While we still don’t know for sure when it comes to either game (and both Bethesda and Disney are being very evasive when it comes to confirming if Blade is going to be an Xbox exclusive or not), PlayStation players may want to look elsewhere when it comes to new PS5 games worth being excited about.
When it comes to Indiana Jones, though, we want Bethesda to use the best Indiana Jones movie as a blueprint for the game and we’re quite intrigued by the rumors that the new Indiana Jones game deploys a Cyberpunk 2077 style feature. Still, we can imagine we’re still a little ways out from learning more about either title.
So, for now, those of you with an Xbox should absolutely check out the best Xbox Game Pass games available (of which Indiana Jones and Blade could be a part of in the future) and the new Xbox Game Pass December 2023 games while you can. If you’re a PlayStation player, you should check out the free PS Plus games available at the moment with the PS Plus December 2023 games line-up – it’s the best set of games we’ve been offered in quite a while.