Thirty-one years after one of the most astonishing WTF endings in video game history, the upcoming “Return to Monkey Island” will finally solve the mystery left in the final moments of 1991’s “Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge”.
The new game has been under development for two years and is led by Ron Gilbert, the director and co-author of the original game and the director of the sequel. He is joined by Dave Grossman, who also co-wrote the two originals.
While the game marks the sixth overall in the franchise, it is the third led by the pair and thus acts as a direct successor to the second. By talking to Adventure Gamers, the couple confirms that the end of the confusing modern amusement park on the second game will finally be explained. Gilbert says:
“One of the things that was very important to me about this was that I wanted the game to start right at the end of Monkey Island 2 when you walk into that amusement park. I wanted the game to start there … I do not want to go into all the details of it, but we start there and then it requires a lot of strange twists that you would expect from us. “
Third to fifth games effectively ignored the end of the second game, giving the pair creative freedom to solve what they want. But the existing games mean that their original vision for a third “Monkey Island” game has had to be adjusted because the other games have used some of their previous ideas:
“If I did the actual thing [original] Monkey Island 3, people would say, ‘Oh, you’re just cheating [Escape from Monkey Island]you’re just cheating [The Curse of Monkey Island]. I do not think you can make that game. “
The pair also addressed the question of how, as a sequel to the second, it will handle the third to fifth games, and what exactly is canon. Gilbert says:
“We are very purposefully doing nothing to invalidate any of the guns that have happened in these games. We are not saying that any of those things did not happen, we are not talking down to them at all. We are embracing many of the things we liked in those games. So we were very, very careful about that. “
Grossman then adds: “We decided we would abide by the canon unless it got in the way and we would ignore some minor details if we needed to”. He says the other games do not even agree with each other, so there has to be a little bit of paradox anyway.
Gilbert also confirmed that the new game will also see a return to the first game’s setting of Melee Island. The couple say they tried to get the original voice actors back where possible and get Danny Delk to return as Murray along with Alexandra Boyd as Elaine. They could not get Earl Boen to return as LeChuck when he was very happily retired, but he gave them his blessing to recast.
“Return to Monkey Island” will be released later this year.