A more reliable source tells us what we already hinted at a bit sarcastically, that the license is not decided by Microsoft, but by the licensee… and it’s not Satya Nadella’s company at all.

This puts Indiana Jones and the Great Circle in a somewhat odd position. The fact is that MachineGames is already considered one of the in-house Xbox studios under ZeniMax Media (Bethesda), and so the game is already released for the Xbox Series and PC as a matter of course, but the IP is not theirs, it’s LucasFilm Games. It’s a subsidiary of Disney so that monstrosity ultimately decides who gets to make the game adaptation and what it’s based on (or what it’s based on… the company can have a say in that too, and we can be sure that’s why Indy’s adventure will be coming to PlayStation 5 this spring).

On the Xbox Two podcast, Windows Central editor Jez Corden said that he too had heard that Disney had essentially picked up the phone and told Microsoft that they wanted more Indiana Jones games. In other words, they essentially ordered a sequel because it seemed like the most sensible idea. Of course, this raises the question of how MachineGames will get to Wolfenstein III this way, but we’ll see; Microsoft has certainly managed to put a SUCCESSFUL licensed game on the table, so Sony is not alone in its handling of Marvel licenses (they now have Insomniac Games working on Marvel’s Wolverine, and we should hear more about that officially soon).

This was expected, by the way. It’s a win-win-win scenario. It’s profitable for Disney because they benefit financially from the game’s good results, it’s profitable for Microsoft because they made the game anyway, and gamers are happy because they get another masterpiece either through their Xbox Game Pass subscription or by buying the product at full price.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will be released this spring (March-May) for PlayStation 5.

Source: Reddit