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On top of a new trailer debuting at yesterday’s Nintendo Direct, Return to Monkey Island has also gotten a revamped website (opens in new tab), which takes the form of a playable adventure game filled with in-jokes and references to the series’ past.
It’s just a single screen with a dialog tree, but that’s the best part of an adventure game, anyway. Here, you can chat up the fan-favorite greasy salesman, Stan, who’s been locked in jail for “marketing-related crimes” – he says was selling nothing, or rather, “nothing fungible.” (Otis is also there, but he “couldn’t break a fourth wall to save his life.”)
The dialog is full of clever gags and just enough classic references to make you feel nostalgic for the good ol’ days of point-and-click adventures, as well as just enough marketing material for Return to Monkey Island to try and hook you. This exact screen also appears in the new trailer, so while Stan will probably spend less time trying to sell you the game after you’ve already bought it, you can expect him to have a role to play.
As previously announced, Return to Monkey Island will launch in 2022, but as Stan explains, “the exact release date will be announced later. But that’s standard marketing practice these days, friend. Don’t hold it against me.”
One more notable bit of Stan’s spiel: “A wise man once said ‘never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game,'” referencing Secret of Monkey Island’s best ending dialog bit, “but that was over thirty years ago, before inflation slimmed your twenty down from a king’s ransom all the way to the price of a sandwich.” (Monkey Island Inflation (opens in new tab) suggests that now you should “never pay more than 43 bucks and 79 cents for a computer game.”)
The website also notes that this is the “exciting conclusion to the Monkey Island series,” but it’s difficult to know how seriously to take that line when the series has seemingly concluded at least four times previously.
Return to Monkey Island is, of course, coming to PC, but on console it be a Switch exclusive at launch.
