Return to Monkey Island is the sixth installment in the Monkey Island series. Also known as Monkey Island 6 or RtMI, it was developed by Ron Gilbert's Terrible Toybox and published by Devolver Digital and Lucasfilm Games.
The game was teased in a blog post by Ron Gilbert on April 1, 2022 before being properly announced three days later on April 4, 2022. It released on September 19, 2022.
Return to Monkey Island picks up immediately after the events of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. While not considered a sequel to that game, it acknowledges the canon from previous entries. The game features the return of many voice actors such as Dominic Armato as Guybrush Threepwood. Co-writer Dave Grossman, programmer David Fox, and composers Michael Land, Peter McConnell, and Clint Bajakian also returned to work on this sequel. [1]
Blurb[]
It’s been many years since Guybrush Threepwood was last locked in a battle of wits with his nemesis, the zombie pirate LeChuck. His true love, Elaine Marley, has turned her focus away from governing and Guybrush himself is adrift and unfulfilled, having never found the Secret of Monkey Island. Hip, young pirate leaders led by Captain Madison have shuffled the old guard from power, Mêlée Island has taken a turn for the worse, and famed businessman Stan has been imprisoned for ‘marketing-related crimes’.
Plot[]
Guybrush Threepwood tells his son Boybrush Threepwood the story of his search for the true Secret of Monkey Island.
It began on Mêlée Island where Threepwood needed a new ship and crew in order to begin his adventure. The Lookout suggested that he speak to the Pirate Leaders at the Scumm Bar who could help him finance it. He also learned that LeChuck was at the Mêlée Docks preparing his ship (called Le Ship) for his own quest to find the secret. It was now a race to see who would get there first.
On his arrival at the bar, he discovered that the old leaders had been replaced by younger pirates led by Captain Madison. They refused to work with him, so Threepwood was forced to come up with a new plan.
Threepwood quickly decided that he should join LeChuck's crew, and lead them in a mutiny, which would win him the ship and crew he needed. However he would need a disguise in order to get on board, as he was well known to be LeChuck's mortal enemy, and the ship was enchanted so as to not allow anybody onboard who was not a member of the crew.
Meanwhile Elaine Marley was working on fighting scurvy in the Caribbean.
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Part I: A Friendly Place Threepwood learned from LeChuck's first mate and quartermaster Iron Rose that the crew were in need of a swabbie. The only qualifications needed were their own mop, and to not be Guybrush Threepwood. Threepwood learned from the Scumm Bar Chef how to make a mop, and used a map made by Wally B. Feed to find Mêlée Island's mop tree. The Voodoo Lady helped him with a disguise by enchanting an eyepatch to have him appear as a ghost. With these things in place, Threepwood was able to join LeChuck's crew, and they set sail for Monkey Island. Part II: A Dangerous Journey Threepwood was told to stay in the hold by Gullet the first swabbie, who seemed to have the power gone to his head now that he outranked someone on board. Gullet kept Threepwood busy by constantly creating mess for him to clean. Threepwood also found Murray in the hold, who had come aboard to spy on LeChuck for Captain Madison. Threepwood snuck out of the hold and on deck was instructed to find a crushed skull to complete the navigation spell required to reach Monkey Island. He used Murray for this purpose, but as he did so, Gullet was enraged to find him away from his post. In his anger, he spilled the potion, which in turn drew Captain LeChuck's rage upon him. Gullet was thrown overboard, and Threepwood was instructed to create a new potion. However the ship's supplies had been depleted. Threepwood discovered that Madison and her crew were also at sea and creating their own potion. It seemed that the one thing they lacked was the skull, and Threepwood still had Murray. He reasoned that if he could get Murray to Madison, then LeChuck's crew could simply follow them. LeChuck's crew were not keen to go to Monkey Island however, and felt LeChuck's plan was a waste of time. Threepwood had to win them all over before they could go on. After convincing the crew to follow LeChuck's orders, he snuck into the captain's cabin and swapped the map to the secret for his mop tree map. He then fired Murray from the cannon over to Madison, who's crew was able to finish their potion. The crew celebrated the victory by throwing their hats into the air. Foolishly, Threepwood threw his eyepatch, which removed his disguise, revealing his identity. LeChuck confronted him, they fought, and Threepwood was thrown into the sea. Part III: Return to Monkey Island Threepwood's ability to breathe underwater for eight minutes allowed him to reach Monkey Island without being on board the ship. Once there he followed LeChuck's map to the secret. He arrived and as he attempted to dig, he sprung a trap, and found himself hanging from his foot, doused in root beer. Madison and the crew appeared, expecting to have caught and killed LeChuck. They were disappointed that Threepwood had scuppered their plan, but then negotiated a new scheme. They would use Threepwood's ability to get on board LeChuck's ship, as he had only been thrown overboard, and technically not fired. Threepwood could then get them the information that they needed to access the secret of Monkey Island. Of course, they intended to use Threepwood, and then double-cross him once he was no longer useful. Threepwood decided that he had better double-cross them first, but worked with them to progress. Once Threepwood had gathered what was needed, Captain Lila threw him from the clifftop and left him for dead. Fortunately, Elaine Marley had come after Threepwood and arrived in time to help him. Also fortunately, Murray had swiped the real map to the secret from Captain Trent. Reinvigorated, Threepwood was ready to race back to Mêlée where they would find the secret inside the Voodoo Lady's shop. Before they could do so, they needed a ship. Threepwood and Elaine used the wreckage of the Sea Monkey ship that he had arrived on years before, and built the Sea Monkey II using Murray as the figurehead. Part IV: Things Get Complicated Threepwood raced to The International House of Mojo and learned that the secret was in a large safe which required five Golden Keys to open. Threepwood spoke to Widey Bones who knew all about the keys. She told him that she had one, one belonged to the locksmith, one to the queen of Brr Muda, one lost at sea by Bella Fisher, and one lost on Terror Island. Threepwood began his search, and to make progress he was required to break Stan S. Stanman out of prison, join the CHUMs discover the lost fishing spot of Bella Fisher, steal from the Museum of Pirate Lore, become the queen of Brr Muda and destroy their gubernatorial system. In the meantime, both the Voodoo Lady and Wally disappeared. With all the keys gathered, he returned to the safe and opened it. He removed a jewel encrusted chest and attempted to open it. As he worked, LeChuck and Madison's crew arrived, now working together against him. They took the chest containing the secret, letting Threepwood live so he could suffer the shame of defeat. They once more left for Monkey Island. Not yet beaten, Threepwood and Marley went after them. Part V: Beneath the Monkey Head On Monkey Island Threepwood and his wife were separated as Marley had to watch his back and duel LeChuck's human crewmember Flair Gorey. Threepwood once more entered the Giant Monkey Head and found Wally chained up over the lava. He went on after LeChuck, who was attempting to complete a magic ritual that would open a door to a place that they could open the secret. LeChuck tried to slow him down, but Threepwood overcame the obstacles. But by the time Threepwood had caught up, LeChuck had opened the door. At this time though Captain Lila, who had murdered Madison and taken command, had turned on him, and they fought over who would take the secret for themselves. Threepwood followed them through the door, where he once more found himself in the High Street of Mêlée Island. Yet now it seemed like a set in an amusement park, where all of the familiar characters were animatronic, including LeChuck and Lila who were fighting over the key to the chest containing the secret. Stan handed Threepwood keys to close for the night. Elaine Marley met a confused Threepwood at the exit. |
Chapters[]
- Prelude: An Unexpected Story Begins
- Part I: A Friendly Place
- Part II: A Dangerous Journey
- Part III: Return to Monkey Island
- Part IV: Things Get Complicated
- Part V: Beneath the Monkey Head
Gameplay[]
Return to Monkey Island is a 2D point-and-click adventure game. The objective is to move the story forward by solving narrative-based puzzles. This can be done by exploring locations, talking to non-player characters to acquire information, collecting items and using them at the right time. The player controls the pirate Guybrush Threepwood, who sails the seas and visits islands.
The user interface is different from previous 2D Monkey Island games. Tooltips over screen hotspots guide the player's actions: when the cursor is moved over an interactive zone of the scene, a brief phrase appears, suggesting what action Guybrush will take. The inventory uses a drag and drop interface to easily use and combine items and the interface has been designed to work with controllers or mice. There is no longer a selection of action verbs to click or select, and all interactive choices are made with either a left click, which generally represents examining the item, or a right click which represents a further interaction such as picking up, talking to, or using.
The game includes a hint system designed to discourage players from looking for walkthroughs online and make sense "in the fantasy" of the game. It is given to the player as a Hint Book inventory item by the Voodoo Lady in the first chapter. As well as this, Threepwood carries a Todo List that can be used to remind players of their objectives and progress. The game also includes a simplified mode called "casual mode" for less experienced players.
Threepwood can walk or run depending on whether players click or double click on locations on screen.
A new collectathon aspect has been added to the game too in the form of trivia cards. Hidden randomly in almost every location these cards can be found, and are stored in a Trivia Book that is collected from the Scumm Bar. The cards ask the player a trivia question. If answered correctly, the card turns gold and remains in the book. If answered incorrectly, it disappears and must be found again in a new location. There are 100 cards to collect, and and can be collected over multiple save files.
Information[]
- The game uses a framing device similar to that of MI2, in which Threepwood tells the story of something that had happened to him in the past.
- While the game begins at the Big Whoop Amusement Park, Ron Gilbert has not defined it a sequel to Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge.[2] The game follows only some of the ideas Gilbert expressed in a 2013 blog post, when he shared some thoughts for an hypothetical Monkey Island 3a game.[3]
- Other returning locations include Mêlée Island and Monkey Island, both featuring new areas to explore and characters to meet such as a locksmith shop.
- In addition, entirely new areas are explored, such as Terror Island and Brr Muda.
- Elements from previous installments, such as Murray from The Curse of Monkey Island return in the game. However, some plot points such as Herman Toothrot's identity as Horatio Torquemada Marley (revealed in Escape from Monkey Island) are revised.[4]
- From the main menu it's possible to access a "scrapbook" where Guybrush keeps memories from the previous five games. After completing Return, some pages are added to the scrapbook, to include stuff from this game and a note written by Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman before actual development started.
- Similarly to Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge and The Curse of Monkey Island, there are two difficulties to select. An easy mode for newcomers and a standard mode for veterans.
- There is also a built-in hint system in order to help players who would be tempted to look up walkthroughs on the internet.
- Enabling Writer's cut setting adds more dialogue lines. As an example, it allows to meet the old pirate leaders much earlier in the story: they are not needed for solving puzzles at that time, but they point out that Guybrush never brought them evidence of completing the last "trial" of the first game, hence they never officially declared him a pirate.
- Several recurring characters reappear, with the intent as getting as much of the original voice cast, or anyone who had played a character in the past, as possible. Currently confirmed to be returning are Guybush Threepwood (Dominic Armato), Elaine Marley (Alexandra Boyd), Stan (Gavin Hammon), Murray (Denny Delk), the Melee Island Lookout (Rob Paulson), Herman Toothrot (Wally Wingert), and Wally (Neil Ross). Additionally, the Voodoo Lady, Carla, and Otis are featured in the game.
- LeChuck is not voiced by Earl Boen, who has retired from acting but given his blessing to recast the character. The role has been given to Jess Harnell.
- At the end of the game, the Secret of Monkey Island is shown. Apart from the actual item Guybrush finds inside a chest, the big reveal is where he ends up, a place named The Original Secret. In a 2022 interview, Gilbert confirmed that a such place was the Secret he planned since the beginning in 1988 (although back then there would have been an antagonist, not Stan, there), but in the end the reveal was not included in the first game, although a few details suggesting it were left in. He also said that for some time they thought about placing in the chest the note by him and Grossman, but then they realized it was better placed in the scrapbook.[5]
- The game has a recurring theme of solved mysteries being disappointing, and fake and embellished stories being more exciting.
- On release the game was sold for £19.49 on Steam. This may be a reference to Threepwood's line in the SoMI ending: "Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game."
- Pre-ordered versions of the game included bonus Horse Armor which would appear in Threepwood's inventory. The armour was entirely useless, but did provide a few extra dialogue options.
- The game has multiple endings based on what choices are made in the final chapter, or if Threepwood dies earlier in the game.
- If a player has left the game for some time, and returns to a save file, Boybrush can ask for a recap of the story to remind them where they got up to. Threepwood will then summarise the story and his objectives.
Development[]
Origin and production[]
Director Ron Gilbert returns after 31 years to tell what happens in his Monkey Island universe after the ending of Monkey Island 2.
Ron Gilbert, the creator of the Monkey Island series, worked on the first two Monkey Island games before leaving the development company, LucasArts, in 1992. He often dreamt of making a new Monkey Island game but did not own the IP rights. Further Monkey Island games were developed without Gilbert by LucasArts and Telltale Games.
In 2012, the Walt Disney Company acquired the rights to Monkey Island when it purchased Lucasfilm. At PAX 2019, Nigel Lowrie, founder of Devolver Digital, mentioned to Gilbert that he knew John Drake, who was in charge of licensing at Disney. Drake wanted to approach Disney about a new Monkey Island game. In December, Gilbert invited Dave Grossman, who had worked on the first two Monkey Island games, to work on a new installment.
Gilbert and Grossman met in Seattle in January 2020 to discuss ideas, and felt confident that they could create a good game. Lowrie approached Drake to pitch the game and Disney was willing to talk about it. Gilbert had "lengthy conversations" with Disney to make sure his team would have creative freedom, allowing him to "build the game I wanted to build".
Return to Monkey Island was developed for two years in secrecy. Gilbert said: "I did not tell anybody. If you were not actually working on this project, you didn't know about it. I didn't tell my best friend. I didn't tell my mother, I didn't tell my sister". The team worked remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. At its peak, the development team consisted of 25 people. Compared to Thimbleweed Park (2017), Gilbert's previous commercial game, the team working on Return to Monkey Island was bigger mainly because there were more artists on staff, such as animators and a dedicated storyboard artist.
Writing[]
It was important to Gilbert that Return to Monkey Island picked up exactly after the ending of Monkey Island 2, which is a cliffhanger showing Guybrush as a child at an amusement park. He stated: "I left Lucasfilm right after that and never resolved it. Future games did their best but we wanted to tackle it head on". Despite this, the game is not intended to be a sequel to Monkey Island 2 and Gilbert defines its temporal position in the series as "amorphous".
Gilbert and Grossman discussed if and how the game should embrace the events of the other games of the series and they found a way to keep all of them canonical. The developers' general philosophy was to adhere to the existing canon as much as possible with two caveats: it can be difficult to keep track of all the details and canonicity can sometimes prevent a good story from being told. So whenever something didn't fit, they would simply ignore it.
Gilbert wanted the game to be a solid pirate adventure. He felt like some of the past Monkey Island games had gone a little too far into silly territory and he wanted the new game to just be a pirate adventure, focusing on Guybrush sailing the seas and visiting islands. This became a cornerstone of what he wanted to achieve.
Unlike the extemporaneous approach to writing that Grossman had early in his career, he now did things in more stages, working from the top down. He began with planning the big aspects and then moved on to the smaller details. To do this, he did a thumbnail pass where he tried to go through and quickly scribble out the entire game. During this process jokes pop into his head, which he made note of. He believed that by taking this approach, it would preserve the freshness of humor without sacrificing the planning that was needed in guiding other aspects of the game, such as artwork and puzzle design.
Art[]
The art style differs from previous Monkey Island games. The team considered using pixel art, but did not want to make a "throwback" game. Gilbert said that they had a lot more freedom and flexibility to not make it a pixel art game.
Searching for an art director, Gilbert recalled a drawing of a stylized Guybrush sent to him by the artist Rex Crowle in 2007, and discovered that Crowle had been a designer on the game LittleBigPlanet and the art director of Double Fine's Knights and Bikes. Gilbert hired Crowle to create an innovative style for Return to Monkey Island as the art director.
Crowle, who played The Secret of Monkey Island as a child, took inspiration from other Monkey Island games and other 1990s LucasArts games such as Day of the Tentacle. For Return to Monkey Island he defined a style reminiscent of a picture book or a pop-up book because it matched well with the main topics of the game: "We've taken something from all of the games, while making something new and specifically tailored to the story that Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman wanted to tell. An art style has to connect with the core themes of the game you're making, its not an interchangeable thing that you apply like a Photoshop filter, and for this adventure a picture-book style was the right fit".
Music and voice acting[]
Composers Michael Land, Peter McConnell, and Clint Bajakian, who already worked on previous installments of the Monkey Island franchise, were hired to compose the game soundtrack. In an interview with Adventure Gamers, Dave Grossman pointed out how easy it was to work with musicians who already knew the franchise very well. Having them back for the sequel was beneficial because they were already familiar with what was expected of them. The rest of the team could simply sit back and watch them create, knowing that they would deliver quality work.
Dominic Armato, the voice actor for Guybrush Threepwood in the previous games, was signed on to reprise the role and was happy to accept the offer. Gilbert met with Armato to have a chat about an unspecified "new game" and the voice actor was baffled when he discovered that the game in question was a Monkey Island game: "We got together, we had coffee, and I think he was very interested in the new game, almost kind of wondering whether maybe he could have a voice part in it. And then I told him that it was the new Monkey Island, and he was just floored".
Alexandra Boyd and Denny Delk returned to voice Elaine and Murray the Talking Skull. Earl Boen, the original voice of LeChuck, had retired from acting in 2017 and gave the developers his blessing to recast the role. Jess Harnell provided the new voice.
Neil Druckmann, co-president of Naughty Dog, has a voice cameo in the game.
Technical design[]
The team spent time making Return to Monkey Island enjoyable with a controller without making the experience worse for players who use a mouse, which point-and-click adventure games typically use. One of the goals was "not distracting or detracting from what the mouse play is".
The user interface differs from the clickable verbs or the pop-up action menu of The Curse of Monkey Island (1997). When the cursor stops over a screen hotspot, a brief message of what Guybrush is thinking appears, suggesting the action he will take if the player clicks.
Gilbert revamped the game engine he used for Thimbleweed Park. The development of his free game Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure, released in May 2020, worked as a testbed for the new engine. The developers added the ability to do camera zooms, pans, and pulls to draw attention to specific elements, which would have been difficult in the early 1990s.
Marketing[]
On April Fools' Day 2022, Gilbert announced on his blog that he was working on a Monkey Island game, surprising the industry. On April 4, Devolver Digital published a teaser video on their YouTube channel and opened the official website. The website was updated in June to show an example of the game's dialogue-based gameplay. Visitors could ask Stan, a regular character in the series, about the new game.
The game was advertised on the official website as "the exciting conclusion of the Monkey Island series", which led to speculation as to whether it would be the final chapter in the series. This was refuted when the developers described it as marketing text not written by them.
Starting from July 11, Gilbert and Grossman shared on Twitter a video clip of the game every Monday, calling the initiative "Monkey Island Monday". The clips revealed new locations, new characters and how the dialogue system and part of the user interface looked like.
The game was released on September 19, 2022, which coincided with International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Preorders were opened on Steam and Nintendo eShop. As a pre-order bonus, players would get an in-game horse armor item that stays in their inventory and has no function, a humorous reference to a controversial downloadable content (DLC) for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
Reception[]
Before release[]
In May 2022, after the first teaser video and a few screenshots of Return to Monkey Island were released, the art style drew criticism from fans online. Gilbert wrote a post on his blog explaining why the style was chosen and expressing his disappointment in the response.
A gameplay trailer was released on June 28 as part of a Nintendo Direct event. This reignited the backlash, leading some people to insult and harass Gilbert on social media and his blog. As a result, Gilbert closed down the comments in the blog and said that he would not talk further about Return to Monkey Island.
Reviews[]
Return to Monkey Island received "generally favourable reviews" from critics according to review aggregator Metacritic, the PC version garnering a rating of 87 out of a possible 100, based on 35 critics, and the Nintendo Switch version getting a rating of 85 out of a possible 100, based on 20 critics.
| Aggregator | Score |
|---|---|
| Metacritic | NS: 85/100
PC: 87/100 |
| Score | |
|---|---|
| Destructoid | 8/10 |
| Eurogamer | (Recommended) |
| Game Informer | 9/10 |
| GameSpot | 9/10 |
| GamesRadar+ | |
| HobbyConsolas | 87/100 |
| IGN | 9/10 |
| Jeuxvideo.com | 17/20 |
| Nintendo Life | |
| PC Gamer (US) | 92/100 |
| Polygon | (Recommends) |
| The Guardian | |
| Multiplayer.it | 9/10 |
| PC Games | 8/10 |
| Rock Paper Shotgun | (Bestest Bests) |
| TheGamer | |
| The Independent | 9/10 |
Gallery[]
Video[]
Links and references[]
References[]
External links[]
- Return to Monkey Island - official site
- Return to Monkey Island on Wikipedia
| Monkey Island Games |
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The Secret of Monkey Island (special edition) • Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (special edition)• The Curse of Monkey Island • Escape from Monkey Island • Tales of Monkey Island • Return to Monkey Island |