Return To Monkey Island: Release Date, Trailers, Gameplay, And More

The Secret of Monkey Island is one of the most legendary point and click adventure games of all time, and finally, players will get another entry as Return to Monkey Island edges closer to its release. Return to Monkey Island is a revival of the series from the creator Ron Gilbert so the story of Guybrush Threepwood and his adventures can continue. It's been well over twenty years since point and click adventure games were at the height of their popularity, but this new entry in the Monkey Island saga seeks to revive and evolve the genre forward. So check out everything we know about the Return to Monkey Island release date, and more. 

Return To Monkey Island Release Date

During Gamescom Opening Night Live 2022, it was confirmed that Return to Monkey Island will be releasing on September 19, meaning players only have to wait a little under a month as of writing this. You can also earn exclusive horse armour for pre-ordering the game, which is a lampoon of the Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion horse armour DLC that is widely seen as the point that microtransactions were introduced to gaming. 

Return To Monkey Island Trailers

The first of the trailers for Return to Monkey Island was the gameplay reveal trailer that debuted back in June 2022. It was the first to give us a look at the brand-new heavily stylised art style, and also revealed a little about the game's plot. The trailer starts with a narration by Guybrush Threepwood as he talks about his past swashbuckling adventures while flipping through a scrapbook. It then transitions into gameplay as he stands on the side of LeChuck's pirate ship, and proclaims this is the story of the time he finally found the secret of Monkey Island. 

The rest of the trailer shows off various scenery with both familiar and new characters, switching between different cutscenes and gameplay sections where you control the character and interact with the 2D environments. 

The next trailer came during Gamescom 2022, where the release date was formally announced during a trailer that featured Marketing Expert Stan. It mostly detailed what type of game Return to Monkey Island is, while showcasing a few more locations that we hadn't previously seen.

Return To Monkey Island Gameplay

Click to enlarge

Return to Monkey Island will have the classic point-and-click adventure gameplay, where players manoeuvre through 2D areas looking for context-sensitive interactions with the environment and NPCs, while also solving puzzles. There is a heavy emphasis on dialogue, with reactive dialogue trees included for immersion, and puzzles are a large part of the experience, with you finding items to add to your inventory and use in specific situations to progress. 

Classic point-and-click adventure games were often known for their difficulty, as you could often softlock yourself from progressing due to the focus on having the correct items, but the developers have said they focused on evolving the classic controls and modernising the more archaic aspects of the genre.

Click to enlarge

It's set to be a direct sequel to the second game, and will even feature flashbacks that detail what happened shortly after the second game ended to set up the storyline for Return to Monkey Island. With the possibility of Guybrush Threepwood finally discovering the secret of Monkey Island, this could be the final entry in the series, dropping three decades after the original was released.

Return To Monkey Island Platforms

Return to Monkey Island will be releasing on the Nintendo Switch and PC, and the developers haven't yet commented on bringing it to other platforms.