Ron Gilbert Doesn’t Know If He’ll Make Another Monkey Island, But He Hopes So

I hope so too.

On September 2 1990 Ron Gilbert sent the floppy disks that stored The Secret Of Monkey Island to be manufactured. The game would be available in stores October of the same year.

He’s written about that process, and about the lasting legacy of Monkey Island, and its actually a really touching, interesting read. This might be my favourite part.

Monkey Island was never a big hit. It sold well, but not nearly as well and anything Sierra released. I started working on Monkey Island II about a month after Monkey Island I went to manufacturing with no idea if the first game was going to do well or completely bomb. I think that was part of my strategy: start working on it before anyone could say “it’s not worth it, let’s go make Star Wars games”.

There are two things in my career that I’m most proud of. Monkey Island is one of them and Humongous Entertainment is the other. They have both touched and influenced a lot of people. People will tell me that they learned english or how to read from playing Monkey Island. One person told me that he and his father fought and never got along, except for when they played Monkey Island together.

It makes me extremely proud and is very humbling.

Monkey Island games not made by Ron Gilbert were a mixed bag. Monkey Island 3 — I thought — was decent, but it wasn’t the same. Ron Gilbert always saw the series as a trilogy and has expressed interest in making his own Monkey Island 3 — which he called Monkey Island 3a.

I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I sure as hell would love to play another Ron Gilbert-made Monkey Island. Turns out he would also like to make it.

I don’t know if I will ever get to make another Monkey Island. I always envisioned the game as a trilogy and I really hope I do, but I don’t know if it’s likely. Monkey Island is now owned by Disney and they haven’t shown any desire to sell me the IP. I don’t know if I could make Monkey Island 3a without complete control over what I was making and the only way to do that is to own it. Disney: Call me.

Disney — please call him.

You can read Ron Gilbert’s blog about the 25th anniversary of Monkey Island here


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