Return to Monkey Island in the first screenshots

We now have the first screenshots that show as yet unidentified cold island environmentcave on Monkey Island, locksmith shop on Mele Island and new view of the classic main street of the village on the island of Mele. Who else remembers Monkey Island Mystery from 1990, he will immediately remember that he turned left to the mansion of the governor Elaine, and in the church, which now has windows broken for some reason, LeChuck tried to marry Elaine at the very end of the game. Prisons also played their part, not to mention the more or less mixed goods trade, which is associated with several puzzles in the first part of the series.

The screenshots also show whimsical, from the point of view of the creators of the modern art style, on which art director Rex Crawl worked. He also participated in games such as little big planet or Knights and bicycles Further: Double penalty. Gilbert and Grossman said that when they first met to understand the basics of the game, they were of course thinking about the direction of pixel art that Thimbleweed Park had already established and that, despite the existence of special editions, we still associate with “The Secret Island of the Monkeys” and the second part. In the end, however, the decision was made to choose a style that would not only benefit the game itself, but also have it. chance to attract new players and prospects.

This time around, the goal is clearly not to give the impression that Return to Monkey Island is strictly a retro game. This should also prove a more advanced user interface that, unlike Thimbleweed Park, will not copy the classic interface known from a number of LucasArts adventures, which ran the SCUMM engine. After all, Gilbert solved the issue of how to update the interface and the game engine itself as part of a free game. delores foxglove park mini adventurereleased during 2020.

However, Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman spoke in interviews about something else. For example, the very first announcement of the game, which took place on Ron Gilbert’s blog in April, seems to have been planned for a longer period of time, as the creators considered it a genuine idea, especially when Gilbert has historically been opposed to April Fools’ jokes.. Unfortunately, April 1st/April fell on a Friday this year, so the full release of the project had to be delayed until early next week.

The good news is that in addition to a number of new characters, we also meet some old acquaintances during the game. Guybrush Threepwood himself, once again recruited by Dominic Armato, and Murray’s talking skull with the voice of the tried-and-tested Danny Delko have already been confirmed. Of course, Elaine Marley, again with the voice of Alexandra Boyd, and the pirate LeChuck should also return.. Unfortunately, his court drummer, Earl Boen, will not be returning to his ghostly or zombified skin as he is retired. However, Boen gave the developers permission to use LeChuck.. And when we return to Mele Island, the old man on guard will also return, the first minor character we have ever met in the Monkey Island series.

We still don’t know much about the story itself, but it will certainly start at the amusement park where it ended. Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge. At the same time, it still applies that the events of the game do not erase or rewrite the third episode, known as “The Curse of Monkey Island”., which neither Gilbert nor Grossman worked on. The good news is that the developers also approached Escape from Monkey Island and the Tales of Monkey Island episodic series. Name: Telltale Games. Although they didn’t work on them directly, they understand that they are great games that many players have enjoyed, so the desire to start over has given way to trying not to throw their favorite adventures in the trash. However, the creators note that, as far as the canon of the series is concerned, here the individual parts contradicted each other a little, therefore Return to Monkey Island will adhere to existing canon where possible, and canon will disappear if it is a narrative impediment..

But it also makes it difficult and, according to Grossman, kind of useless to try to place “Return to Monkey Island” somewhere in time. This is a direct continuation of the second part, so it should logically precede the events of “The Curse of Monkey Island” as the third part, however according to Ron Gilbert, the order of the individual games is rather vague and undefined.while Dave Grossman noted that trying to assign a specific number to each story due to chronological order would sooner or later be difficult.

The behind-the-scenes information also sounds interesting. It’s no secret that The Monkey Island brand is owned by Lucasfilm, which is now owned by Disney.. So for a long time it seemed like there was no real chance for a sequel, since Disney is not exactly the kind of company that needs money in exchange for the rights to Monkey Island. However, Ron Gilbert spoke with Devolver Digital’s Nigel Lowry at Pax. Lowry revealed that he knew John Drake, head of licensing at Lucasfilm Games, and promised Gilbert that he would see if anything could be done about Monkey Island.

Thus was born Return to Monkey Island, which creates the studio Terrible Toybox, specially a team that had about 25 developers at its peak. By comparison, Thimbleweed Park was supposed to employ about 14 people., and this difference was mainly due to the need for more graphic artists and animators. The project is then published by Devolver Digital, with Lucasfilm Games acting here as brand holder and administrator. At the turn of 2019 and 2020, Gilbert met with Dave Grossman to see if Grossman was interested in returning to Monkey Island and if the creators were able to come up with a really interesting game, and the rest is history that we will be able to play this year. Gilbert said that we’ll find out more later, but the developers can’t release Guybrush Threepwood’s new pirate adventure on Steam overnight.