Ron Gilbert Says Making Another 'Monkey Island' Game Would Be "Really Complicated"
Summary
Ron Gilbert would have to deal with a lot of big companies to make a new Monkey Island, but he doesn't have to for Thimbleweed Park 2
Ron Gilbert, creator of the beloved Monkey Island series of adventure games, admitted that making a new one would be "really complicated" because of all the companies that would have to be involved. That's part of why he eschewed the traditional game-publisher system for his next adventure game, Thimbleweed Park 2.
Bloomberg interviewed Gilbert shortly after the announcement of Thimbleweed Park 2, and asked about the possibility of getting another Monkey Island game in the future. The last game in the series to be released was 2022's Return to Monkey Island, which Devolver Digital published and Disney (who owns the rights to the series) was heavily involved with. Gilbert admitted that the fact that so many companies would need to be involved in a new Monkey Island would make it complicated to bring the series back.
"Now there’s Disney involved, and it’s not that they were bad — they were a good partner, creatively. But Disney, just because of the way they are, they like to work with large companies," Gilbert explained. "They would not work with me directly, which means there would have to be somebody else like a Devolver in the mix for the whole thing. It just gets really complicated."
Since Return to Monkey Island, Disney has continued to work with external developers to make games based on Disney-owned properties. Kingdom Hearts 4 got a particularly big spotlight at this year's D23. From Gilbert's perspective, Disney is more comfortable working with a corporation like Square Enix than with his indie studio, Terrible Toybox
On top of that, Gilbert seems to be unhappy with the unfavorable publishing deals available to indie developers right now. That's why, rather than signing with a big publisher to produce Thimbleweed Park 2, Gilbert instead got funding from a still-unnamed wealthy investor interested in bringing a sequel to the 2015 adventure game to life. "This deal is a lot more fair in that he gets whole very quickly, and then it’s a reasonable split," Gilbert told Bloomberg.
While it doesn't look like we're getting a new Monkey Island game anytime soon, Thimbleweed Park 2 will be released on Windows PC in early 2028. Return to Monkey Island also remains available on Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X.