Return to Monkey Island: A new adventure that gets a help system

Surprisingly, the return of the Monkey Island adventure series was announced a few weeks ago. Manufacturers also want to do a few things differently and also update the franchise.

although Back to Monkey Island Should of course remain faithful to the popular cult adventures of the past, the makers of the game have also planned some innovations to adapt the game to the modern era. Creators Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman have now given an interview with Ars Technica a statement.

“It’s a new monkey island rather than just another monkey island; that’s a subtle distinction, but it’s important,” Grossman says, for example. In short: While the successful formula of the earlier days should remain the same, little more will change than adventure enthusiasts initially expected.

Two new features were specifically addressed: a help or hint system and an unofficial mode. The direct sequel to Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge is designed to accommodate casual players and help you solve puzzles if needed. After all, adventures were known, above all, in the early days to offer players sometimes challenging puzzles; And some of them threw themselves at them for hours and took care of every detail until they could solve it.

The difference back then was that the internet wasn’t quite as widespread yet, after all, it’s been 31 years since Monkey Island 2 was released. Nowadays, without this hint system, players would simply search the net and look for a solution to the problem rather than spend ages trying solve the puzzle. This caused the development team to rethink and make the integration of such a system possible. But this should also make sense in a playful way and offer more than a simple solution. So it should leave players a little bewildered when using the system.

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