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Esparadrapo on 09 January 2024
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shikamaru317 said:
Esparadrapo said:

Hoping for a 80+ tells volumes. I don't think they were the right choice for this franchise.

Well, I don't think Disney had any better options when they made the Indiana Jones deal with Zenimax sometime between 2019 and early 2021. They were kind of desperate to license out their IP after foolishly closing down their own gaming division several years prior. Starting around about 2019 or 2020 we saw Disney chucking out IP licenses left and right to whichever studios made the best offer presumably. 

In an ideal world I'm sure that Disney would have wanted the Indy license to go to Crystal Dynamics or Naughty Dog since both studios already had experience making the style of game that works best for Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider reboot trilogy and Uncharted respectively, but Disney had kind of got burned in their previous Crystal Dynamics Avengers deal when that game flopped hard, and Crystal Dynamics seemed to want to get back to Tomb Raider after taking that Avengers break. Meanwhile Naughty Dog has moved on from Uncharted and seems to only care about TLOU these days, so I doubt they even put in a bid for Indiana Jones when they heard Disney was looking to license it out. Zenimax presumably made the best offer in terms of licensing cost percentages and such out of all of the interested parties for Indiana Jones. 

Is Machine the ideal studio for Indy? Maybe not, they have never made a single 3rd person game, have never made an action-adventure game with puzzle elements incorporated, etc. However, they are a technically proficient studio that has proven capable of pulling off good graphics within the id Tech engine, and they have had some games review well. Assuming they made smart hiring choices for lead and senior positions on Indy early in it's development, preferably some former Naughty Dog or Crystal Dynamics/Eidos devs who worked on Uncharted or Tomb Raider reboot trilogy games previously, they may just be able to pull off a good 80+ or even 85+ Indy game imo. Alot will be clearer once we actually see the game in action next week.

Part of my concerns come from the id Tech engine which I don't think they will be using since it's only for FPS. If they are using another engine that's another hurdle.