It looks like Netflix isn’t the only development studio with a surprise up its sleeve on this rather busy Tuesday. Bethesda took a moment to make an unexpected announcement of its own via its Twitter page: The game developer will be joining forces with the newly formed Lucasfilm Games to bring an Indiana Jones video game to the masses. The creative hive behind the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series announced the upcoming project in style, opting to deploy a teaser that showed an adventurer’s cluttered desk over the classic film score. The slow pan to the famous fedora and bullwhip over the swelling orchestration does have a way of stirring up a bit of emotion, we have to admit.
“A new Indiana Jones game with an original story is in development from our studio, MachineGames, and will be executive produced by Todd Howard, in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games,” Bethesda wrote in a follow-up tweet. “It’ll be some time before we have more to reveal, but we’re very excited to share today’s news!”
The announcement comes only a day after Lucasfilm revealed its new gaming imprint, which will serve as the new home of all of its upcoming video game projects. Bethesda is pretty busy these days: Its celebrated Fallout title is currently being primed for an Amazon TV series from Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy.
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Raiders-Era Indy only, please and thank you.
Just not Atari 2600 Raiders-Era Indy.
I would play the heck out of that. And did.
Loved that game. It was really ahead of its time with its vast network of intricately-designed puzzle rooms and use of inventory item control. You needed both joysticks — one just for inventory!
I didn’t realize until I just looked it up that the VCS Raiders of the Lost Ark was designed and programmed by Howard Scott “Yeah, I did E.T.” Warshaw. Both that game and RotLA really had some interesting ideas that were just handicapped by the aging VCS hardware. I wonder what he could’ve done with the more powerful 5200/7800, or even the NES.
I think his issues were short deadlines as much as limited hardware; he famously only had a month to design and code E.T., and this is back when programmers were coding in machine language directly for the hardware.
With its small quest inventory and multi-screen world, the E.T. game carried at least some of the Raiders DNA forward. I have a hunch the finished product would have been a lot more Raiders-like had Warshaw been given ample time to finish it.
Very good point about deadlines!
We called ‘em “teet-see” flies
Oakland Era, or LA Era?
I don’t care, as long as it’s not Crystal Skull-era.
Wasn’t there a post-Emperor’s Tomb game that had been announced ages ago, with demos teasing spectacularly revolutionary ragdoll physics ?Or was it a console game that came out long ago (console games are invisible to me)? Or was it a cancelled project ? Or is it precisely what we’re talking about here ?
I was gonna say the same thing! I remember a short demo for it where Indy was fighting people on a moving car or truck.
I believe it was a San Francisco street car. From Indiana Jones and The Staff of Kings.
Yep! thats it.
Hadn’t even heard of that game (and I thought I had played them all, even the terrible Indy’s Desktop Adventures). Apparently “The Staff of Kings” wasn’t well received, including in the opinion of this website.https://games.avclub.com/indiana-jones-and-the-staff-of-kings-1798216828
As noted below, it turned into Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, which was to all accounts quite the mess. IIRC, it was going to include a procedural animation system for NPCs that would make their death/KO movements look more natural than ragdoll physics and also an advanced particle-effects system that would allow textures to warp and break realistically. They would up using those systems in Star Wars – The Force Unleashed, where you’ll note that the particle effects look… exactly like every other game’s particle effects, and the animations look… just like ragdoll physics.
Oh man, I loved Emperor’s Tomb. It was like a Tomb Raider game but more realistic (no unlimited ammo—you run out, you find more or you grab another gun, a table leg, or a shovel). It was so satisfying, being out of bullets and with a couple of Nazis with Sten machine guns aimed at you, and you use your whip to snatch the gun out of of one of their hands, grab it, and unload on them. Take that, Nazi scum.
So… Monkey Island? Maniac Mansion? Full Throttle?
1) Man I like that game (though I admit I’m partial to the PC port, where you can “sucker punch” most enemies to circumvent the tedious fistfight system). 2) Nothing embodies the Lucasarts ethos quite like Indy’s inventory, which places his bullwhip in the second slot but reserves the first slot for a magazine. 3) What I would give to see a big-budget game in 2021 force players to assemble commands using those verb-tables (bonus points if there’s also a pixel-hunt for the specific brick or elephant-tusk that has an interaction defined).
> TAKE BRICK
YOU CANNOT TAKE THE BRICK
> GRAB BRICK
YOU CANNOT GRAB
> TAKE ROCK
YOU CANNOT TAKE THE ROCK
> TAKE BLOCK
YOU CANNOT TAKE THE BLOCK
> TAKE STONE
YOU CANNOT TAKE THE STONE
> TAKE GREY BRICK
YOU CANNOT TAKE THE GREY
> TAKE THING
YOU TAKE THE THING, IT IS A BRICK.
INVENTORY : BRICK
> FUCK YOU
YOU CANNOT FUCK THE YOU
>Get ye flask
You can’t get ye flask!
I believe in that game, the most recently picked up objects go to the first slot and push everything back one. I remember because when you pick up the various stones, the world stone gets picked up first because it’s on top, when when you place them back down, the sun stone needs to go first.
“I’m selling these fine leather jackets.”
First thing I think of when I see anything about an Indiana Jones game. If it were point-and-click follow-up to Fate of Atlantis, it would be a day 1 purchase for me.
Indiana Jones game: Yay!Todd Howard producing: Boo!I hope they use gamebryo, playing an IJ game with all the brokenness of gamebryo would be hilarious and great.
Gamebryo: The engine they’ve been technically updating, more or less, for the past 20 years.
Riding a horse straight up a mountain in Skyrim never ceases to amuse me.
“Here at Bethesda, we’re BIG Indiana Jones fans. Which is why we’re so excited to tell you the big news – this summer, YOU get to put on the iconic biker hat of fan favorite character Mutt Jones!Taking place between The Last Crusade and the Crystal Skull – YOU get to experience the missing part of the story! With the processing power of next-gen consoles, you’ll feel like you’re right there climbing on the motorcycle, putting on hair gel, and taking fencing lessons while Karen Allen cheers you on!And following up on our well regarded Co-op play from Youngblood, another friend or family member can take control of the big-guy himself – Ray Winstone’s gold obsessed double agent character! We hired only the best Ray Winstone impersonator folks.We also have some exciting plans for VR. See that gopher hill? You can walk there! Don’t make mods for this game or our legal team will hunt you for sport!”-Todd Howard, probably.
“taking fencing lessons while Karen Allen cheers you on!”There’s some gameplay I can get behind.
“Take fencing lessons while Karen Allen cheers you on Karen Allen’s eerily smooth, harshly lit face stares directly at you, unmoving, waiting for you to either select a dialog option or end the conversation so she can wander through the nearest doorway.” – Bethesda
Harsh but fair. Doesn’t matter, I’ve had a crush on her for most of my life so
To be very clear, I’m not mocking Karen Allen, I’m mocking Bethesda’s deeply unsettling dialog system. I assume an actor of her stature would get the full Sir Patrick Stewart treatment.
Oh oh absolutely I’m right along with you there.
Ok but nothing beats “Fate of Atlantis”!
This 1000 times
Such a great game! I replayed it last year and it still totally holds up.
For perspective: Despite my username, I’m not, in fact, an old man. I’m actually 27. But I discovered this and other old LucasArts adventure games as a teenager and I just fell in love with them.I’ve played this one so many times that I know all the puzzles by heart. But I still replay it from time to time, and it’s an absolute delight everytime. I can’t explain it.
Running out of orichalcum after the crab boat was the worst. You have go all the way back, fill up the cup with lava then go over to the orichalcum machine and then get back on the stupid crab raft. It just took forever to do something so simple.
It’s a great story with amazing characters and challenging but not impossible puzzles.
It’s everything an adventure game should be.
Wouldn’t have made a bad fourth movie either! Certainly much better than the one we eventually got.
The puzzles are logical enough that if you forget a solution it’s satisfying to figure out, and they’re so cleanly designed that you can cruise through the familiar ones without grinding the story to a halt. It’s also probably the apex of pixel art for that generation, and it has top-notch production and sound design. And the writing hits the high-adventure tone of an Indiana Jones movie without losing the offhand comedy of a Lucasarts adventure. Pretty sure I got a copy for my 13th birthday in 1997. We’d just gotten our first PC, and my parents made a big deal about buying me something as lavish as A Computer Game for my birthday. When we got to the store the game was something like $7.99 – classic or not, it was a 5-year-old point-and-click adventure with 2D graphics. There was a flyer inside for a Lucasarts box set that was likewise budget-priced and came with Zak McKracken, Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Loom, and Last Crusade – I’m pretty sure I ordered it over the phone, and a box full of 3.5″ diskettes arrived six weeks later. One day I’m going to explain this to my son, and he’s not going to believe me…
But what I also love about these games in general is that they’re designed for you to take some breaks in between. You get stuck, you go do something else, you come back to it with a fresh perspective and figure it out! Never been much of a gamer, for similar reasons why I’m also not into sports – I lack the ambition to win just for winning’s sake. But these kinds of games are perfect for me. Because it’s all about the story. And it’s about inventiveness.And especially with “Fate of Atlantis”, it’s so great that there’s different ways to solve puzzles, and even different endings, depending on your decisions!My favorite is still “Monkey Island 2″ though, just because I want to live in that world, it’s so beautiful!
Please let this be Wolfenstein with a whip.
As long as its not Rage with swinging monkey-vines.
This’ll be a classic point-and-click adventure game like Fate of Atlantis, right?, and not some cookie cutter action-adventure game.
Thank fuck it’s MachineGames, and not Bethesda itself.