Return to Monkey Island confirmed by Ron Gilbert as real, slated for 2022 launch

Ron Gilbert teased Return to Monkey Island on April 1st and it was confirmed as a video game that will be released in 2022.

The announcement of the game came as a joke in Gilbert's 18 years of operating the blog. It appeared to be a gag. On Monday, Gilbert followed his post up by saying that he felt bad about the joke, and that he whipped up the game so no one was disappointed.

Gilbert said that the game has been in development for roughly two years by the team at Terrible Toybox, which also worked on Thimbleweed Park. Terrible Toybox has picked up a new partner this time around, Dave Grossman, who co-wrote and co-designed many legendary point-and-click games at LucasArts, including the first two Monkey Island titles.

The original LucasArts musicians will provide the game's score, as well as Dominic Armato, who will reprise the role of Guybrush Threepwood.

“Too much of my life creating and making things other people own”

A minute-long trailer released on Monday is brief on the game's mechanics, but it does not give much information about the engine that will be used to display its high-res 2D characters and art assets. Ron Gilbert told me he would never make another Monkey Island unless he was punched off the deck.

The quote is a reference to Gilbert's dream of creating anotherMonkey Island game. Gilbert wrote that Monkey Island would never return unless he owned the intellectual property.

Since that post went live, the Disney-helmed Lucasfilm Games has been more generous about helping its most venerable alumni re-release original games with minimal interference, and the company also increased its efforts to put its biggest properties in the hands of new developers. The upcoming video game is being made by MachineGames. Gilbert hasn't said what deal he struck with LucasArts rightsholders, but it's probably good enough to make him eat some very famous and not make another Monkey Island words.

Take the rest of Gilbert's post with a grain of salt, particularly the directive about rebuilding SCUMM, the programming system he developed for classic LucasArts games. Due to game development timelines and budgets and the availability of robust third-party engines in the years since, it doesn't seem like a hill worth dying on.

Gilbert is willing to make compromises to deliver a modern game. The game follows his high-res 2D dream instead of using 3D assets, and its use of spoken voice work suggests a fully voiced adventure. Gilbert previously suggested droppingverbs but leavingdialogue puzzles in the original games that made them special. Gilbert said that adventure-gaming difficulty is important.

It would be a hardcore adventure game driven by what made that era so great. No tutorials or hint systems or pansy-assed puzzles or catering to the mass-market or modernizing. It would be an adventure game for the hardcore. You're going to get stuck. You're going to be frustrated. Some puzzles will be hard, but all the puzzles will be fair. It's one aspect of Monkey Island I am very proud of.

If Gilbert sticks with his plans, he will not give much more information about the game ahead of its launch. He told fans that members of the press should play it at the same time. My Metacritic score hopes they won't be mad at me.

Fine by us. We will play the game whenever Gilbert gives it to us, which will be by the end of this year. Take Breath of the Wild 2.