‘Return To Monkey Island’ will pick up where 1991’s ‘Monkey Island 2’ ended

The creator of Monkey Island has confirmed that the upcoming Return To Monkey Island will pick up where the second game left players in 1991.

While there have been three additional games released between Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge and the upcoming Return To Monkey Island, the new game sees original writers Dave Grossman and Ron Gilbert return to the franchise.

In a new interview, the pair confirmed that Return To Monkey Island is being treated as a direct sequel to LeChuck’s Revenge.

Beware Monkey Island 2 spoilers below.

It will start right where that second game ended, which was with protagonist Guybrush Threepwood walking into an amusement park with evil pirate/recently-revealed sibling LeChuck. Changed into children, the final scene sees their parents arrive and tell Guybrush they’re glad he’s okay while LeChuck’s eyes glow red. The meaning of all this has kept fans busy in debate for years.

“One of the things that was very important to me about this was that I did want 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” Gilbert told Adventure Gamers.

“That was kind of my one criteria: we need to start the game there. I don’t want to go into all the details of it, but we do start there, and then it takes lots of weird twists and turns that you would expect from us,” he continued.

Elsewhere in the interview, Gilbert confirmed that while the new game is a direct sequel, it isn’t the same game the pair would have made in the ‘90s.

“The honest truth is that neither of us would be able to make the game we would have made back then. We’re different people,” Gilbert said “The ideas I had floating around in my head for what my Monkey Island 3 would have been, a lot of those ideas have already been done”.

In other news, amid rumours that Kojima Productions could be acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Hideo Kojima has confirmed that his development studio will remain independent.