More than 30 years later, the legendary 90s adventure franchise finally gets a sequel worthy of the Monkey Island name.

The lowdown

If you’re a child of the 90s you might remember the landmark Monkey Island series of computer games. Monkey Island came out during the heyday of LucasArts – a subsidiary of Lucasfilm that was extremely beloved not just for its Star Wars games, but for its quirky, heartfelt point-and-click adventure games like Maniac Mansion, Sam and Max, and the Indiana Jones series. 

The first two games in the Monkey Island series, from legendary developers Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman, were critically acclaimed, but the series had a noted downturn after Gilbert left. Since then, the IP has more or less bobbed up and down, with those first two games remaining a bar that none of the rest of the series has managed to hit. It could be because that spirit has gone, or because the point-and-click genre didn’t really survive past the 90s, and more’s the pity.

Gilbert and Grossman have returned for Return to Monkey Island, which is a direct sequel to the second game, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge, released in 1991. It’s no coincidence that this is the best game in the series since they left.

The good

It’s a new Monkey Island game! In 2022! That should be enough.

Seriously, though, there’s a texture, and more importantly a sense of humour to the Monkey Island games that isn’t exactly lost in 2022, but still feels like a delightful throwback. It’s the kind of humour where so many jokes are thrown at the wall that it can be hard to keep track of the plot – basically, erstwhile explorer Guybrush Threepwood is trying to find out the secret of Monkey Island, again. Every puzzle is a chance for another gag, be it a quest to find the legendary mop tree to create a mop that will let you onto a pirate ship, or cheating on three trials in order to become queen of an ailing nation (it makes sense, I promise).

There’s not much to the gameplay – you point, you observe, you click – but Return to Monkey Island runs smoother than any of the featured pirate ships. The art style, which resembles a pop-up book, feels like an appropriate update of the pixel art style of the original games – lo-fi, but full of care and character. The puzzles can be on the difficult side, but if you’re really stuck, you can always toggle the difficulty and ask for a few hints. I’d recommend not doing so, because wandering around figuring out what to do is half the fun with games like this!

The bad

The point-and-click adventure is not the easiest of genres to get into nowadays. If you’re not already keen on some willfully obtuse puzzle solving, then this is probably not going to be the game that gets you across the line. This isn’t action-packed or fast-moving, and while I beat it in a pretty brisk six hours, I can imagine it taking up to ten hours, especially if you’re dedicated to exploring every nook and cranny, or more likely, getting stuck and not being able to figure out how to progress.

The verdict

That a new Monkey Island game exists at all in 2022 is a delight. The fact that it isn’t just a half-hearted resurrection of the franchise but one that is full of spirit, feels like a minor miracle. Even for those unfamiliar with the originals, this is a deeply charming and hilarious game.

Return to Monkey Island is available on Windows, macOS and Nintendo Switch now.