Return to Monkey Island: New adventure gets a help system

Surprisingly, a comeback of the cult adventure series Monkey Island was announced a few weeks ago. The makers also want to do some things differently and also modernize the franchise.

Although Return to Monkey Island is of course intended to remain true to the popular cult adventures of the past, the makers have also planned some innovations to adapt the game to modern times. The creators Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman have now in an interview with Ars Technica reveal.

“It’s a new Monkey Island instead of just another Monkey Island; that’s a subtle distinction, but an important one,” says Grossman, for example. In short: While the successful formula of earlier days should remain intact, a little more will change than adventure fans might have initially expected.

Two new features were specifically addressed: a help or hint system and a casual mode. The direct sequel to Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge is intended to accommodate occasional gamers and give you help in solving puzzles if necessary. After all, adventures were known, above all, in the earlier days for sometimes presenting difficult puzzles to players; some of them threw themselves on them for hours and paid attention to every detail in order to be able to solve them.

The difference back then was that the internet wasn’t widespread yet, after all, 31 years have passed since the release of Monkey Island 2. Nowadays, without such a hint system, players would simply look on the net and look for a solution to the problem instead of spending ages trying to solve a puzzle. This caused the development team to rethink and made the integration of such a system conceivable. But this should also make sense in a playful way and present more than a simple solution. A bit of their own puzzling should therefore be left for the players when using the system.

Return to Monkey Island is slated for release later in 2022.