Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is supposed to be the big console and Game Pass exclusive for Xbox this fall, but it won’t be long until it comes to PlayStation 5 too, according to new reports. The port has been rumored for months and is the latest Xbox game to lose exclusivity amid Microsoft’s new multiplatform push.
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Update: 8/20/24 4:00 p.m. ET: Indiana Jones got an official release date of December 9 for Xbox and PC at Gamescom Opening Night Live. But the announcement also confirmed that the game will come to PS5 sometime in spring of 2025, an exclusivity window of just a few months. The game also got a new trailer showing off additional locations and all the things players will do as the titular archeologist.
Original story follows.
Indiana Jones, which is being made by Machine Games, the studio best known for 2014’s Wolfenstein: The New Order and its sequel, doesn’t yet have an official release date but is expected to arrive on Xbox and PC by the end of 2024. According to podcaster and industry insider Nate The Hate, the game will only have a short window of console exclusivity before it arrives on PS5 in the first half of 2025. Backing up his claim, Insider Gaming reports that this news has already been shared with some media outlets under NDA.
Earlier this year, Microsoft shocked fans with the news that four of its previously exclusive first-party games, including Sea of Thieves and Hi-Fi Rush, would appear on PS5. At the time, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said that there weren’t plans for other games, including Starfield and Indiana Jones, to go multiplatform yet.
But as The Verge and others have reported in the months since, nothing is currently off the table in terms of which Xbox Studios games might lose their exclusivity status. While that’s good news for players who wouldn’t otherwise be able to access them, it also has left Xbox players feeling jilted and worried about the platform’s future as pressure mounts to increase profit margins following the acquisition of Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard.
Indiana Jones, which is based on a license from Disney, was a major source of contention in the FTC trial over that merger last year, with the regulatory office pointing to its exclusivity as proof of the dangers of industry consolidation. Pete Hines, who was head of publishing for Bethesda at the time, argued that exclusivity led to better games by giving studios more time and resources to optimize projects for one platform rather than several.
Hines was also one of the Bethesda executives to internally voice the most frustration over the company’s games becoming exclusives after it was acquired by Microsoft while franchises like Call of Duty would remain multiplatform. He retired late last year. Arkane’s Blade, another licensed game currently being made by a Bethesda-owned studio, has also been cagey about its lack of announced exclusivity, and Doom: The Dark Ages was announced as a multiplatform game back during its Xbox Showcase reveal earlier this summer.
Under its new approach, Microsoft was reportedly also considering whether to bring the massive sci-fi RPG Starfield to PS5. Its DLC expansion, Shattered Space, arrives this fall as well. Xbox is expected to make a bunch of announcements at Gamescom this week. We’ll see if more PS5 ports are among them.
Update: 8/19/24 4:30 p.m. ET: Noted that the next Doom is also coming to PS5.
