Indiana Jones 5 is supposed to be the final adventure of Harrison Ford’s titular archeologist/man of action, which is both a sensible idea and a bittersweet event to behold in the future. However, there’s some news that’s just landed on our desk, complete with a treasure map that leads to a development that fans should get very excited about. Get ready to return to the world of Indiana Jones yet again, as a brand new story is about to be told in a freshly announced video game.
Perhaps even more exciting is the fact that famed publisher Bethesda is behind this new Indiana Jones game. With a never before told story, Indy’s return to game consoles and PCs is a new project that sees the folks behind The Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises teaming up with the recently resurrected Lucasfilm Games. And while the details aren’t too voluminous, we do have an exciting teaser that was posted to Bethesda’s Twitter page; which you can see below:
Much like the recently announced return of James Bond to the video game world, Project 007, this brand new Indiana Jones story is something we’ll have to wait quite some time to see. At the earliest, we might be able to expect this tale to be told closer to the 2022 release date for Indiana Jones 5. Though seeing as this won’t be a tie-in game that piggybacks off of the story for the next and last sequel to Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’ collective franchise, it could take longer than that.
Even with the cloud of mystery surrounding Bethesda’s Indiana Jones game, there are some clues that might be worth picking up on in this video. Looking at Professor Jones’ rather messy desk, we see books titled “Ancient Circles Jubilee,” “Forbidden Stones,” and “Myths That Made…” strewn in one corner of the workspace. As we pan across, a travel journal that could be the Grail diary, as well as a map of the Vatican with some interesting markings, might suggest this new story is a follow-up to 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. That is, if the ticket for overnight service to Rome is a memento, rather than a contemporary time stamp.
For reference, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade takes place in 1939, and that claim ticket’s October 21, 1937 date would place this adventure between Raiders of the Lost Ark and the events of Last Crusade. So we might be seeing a midquel adventure that pits Indy on an adventure that predates the adventure that saw him reunite with his father.
Obviously, we’ll have to wait and see where and when this Indiana Jones adventure takes us, as this is merely an announcement, and development probably hasn’t even begun on the game just yet. But we do know that the James Mangold-directed Indiana Jones 5 will be released into theaters on July 29, 2022, closing the cinematic book on Harrison Ford’s iconic adventurer. If you don’t want to wait that long to see something new at the movies, then consider the 2021 release schedule as your ticket to fortune and glory, kid.
