The new Indiana Jones game from Starfield release date right now, though.
Emails talking about the new Indiana Jones game come from the ongoing FTC versus Microsoft court case concerning the Activision Blizzard buyout, with many documents being made public by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
In one of these emails, we've learned about Howard's love for Indiana Jones, and what the internal reception to the game's pitch was like a few years ago.
"Project Relic is an original Indiana Jones game (not tied to films) developed by MachineGames and executive produced by Todd Howard, who has been trying to get this game made for over a decade," Bethesda head of publishing Pete Hines said in an email from 2021.
"If you don't know, Todd might be the biggest Indiana Jones fan on the planet. I'm not exaggerating even a little. Anyone who has seen the pitch has immediately said 'Oh my God, I have to play that game right now.' It's going to be amazing and we think the reaction to the announcement is going to be terrific."
This email was sent just before the very, very far off this does sound promising.
Having recently rewatched all the Indiana Jones films ahead of Dial of Destiny (even Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which holds up incredibly well apart from the shonky CGI), I cannot wait to see what Howard and MachineGames have cooking, and how stepping away from the films can let the team tell a wholly original story.
If Howard really has been wanting to make this game for over a decade as of 2021, I wonder which Bethesda studio he had in mind at that time. MachineGames was founded in 2009, but its first Wolfenstein game wasn't released until 2014, so it's potential that another internal studio was being eyed up, as long as Howard could get the rights – which went to Disney when it bought LucasFilm in 2012.
MachineGames is known for developing modern Wolfenstein games, so the team definitely is used to making games that let you shoot Nazis, that's for sure. It'll also likely come to PC Game day one, which is always nice.
If the new Indiana Jones game has you excited, we've also got a breakdown of the best single-player games you need to try right now.