MachineGames has primarily been known as the Wolfenstein studio in recent years, but it seems like that won’t be the case for much longer. Earlier this year, parent company Bethesda announced that MachineGames was working on an Indiana Jones game, and that Todd Howard of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout game (and Starfield, soon enough) will be serving as an executive producer on the project.
With Howard currently directing Starfield though, and with The Elder Scrolls 6 next in line demanding his attention after that, it’s fair to say that at least the next half decade is looking pretty packed for him. What exactly is his involvement in the Indiana Jones game then? When asked about the same in a recent interview with IGN, Howard explained that unlike the games he directs, projects that he’s executive producing are games that he isn’t as hands on with and usually checks in on every now and then, and that the former always remains his main focus.
“When I executive produce things, that’s a game that I’m kind of checking in on,” Howard said. “It’s not a daily thing, it might be once a week, it might be once a month, depending on the state of the game. There’s a number of things that I executive produce, and then If I’m directing a game, that’s more of a daily activity.”
Howard went on to explain that he had originally pitched an Indiana Jones game to LucasArts over a decade ago, and though that project couldn’t get off the ground, he sparked the conversation with them once more following their acquisition by Disney, at which point MachineGames emerged as a possible candidate to work on the game in his eyes.
“Internally, I really love the work MachineGames does,” Howard added. “Everybody knows each other really, really well. And I mentioned to them, ‘hey, is this something that might interest you?'”
“I think [The Chronicles of] Riddick on the original Xbox [developed by Starbreeze Studios, with several members of the current MachineGames team] is unbelievable,” he said. “Like, you look at the tech level of that game at the time, before DOOM– it’s amazing. And the work they’ve done on Wolfenstein and scenes and characters, I just think they’re incredible developers. And so I brought it up to them, ‘hey, is this something that might interest you?’ And they said, ‘absolutely.’ And they’re good at the Nazi stuff, right?”
Howard went on to talk about his own role on the project, revealing that the game is based on an original Indiana Jones story by him that he and MachineGames then worked on and developed together. He went on to add that the Swedish studio is “doing an amazing job” with the game, and that he’s “just happy to lend a hand” and work on the project in some capacity.
“So they’re making the game, I’m involved creatively, like ‘hey, what’s the game going to be?'” he said. “I had this original story and we’ve worked on it sort of together. I spend a little bit of time on it, they’re running with it, they’re doing an amazing job. I’m just happy to lend a hand and be involved.”
As for when the Indiana Jones game will be out, it probably won’t be anytime soon. Earlier this year, Bethesda’s Pete Hines said that the game was in the “very, very, very early stages of production.”
