Return to Monkey Island: Poll – Which style is the best?

It’s the adventure comeback of the year: Ron Gilbert hears the pleas of his fans and wants to present us with a brand new Monkey Island in 2022, which should build on the iconic second part. The fans have been over the moon since the announcement, but the first screenshots also caused a bit of concern: does the new graphic style, which takes some getting used to, do the big adventure series justice? After a while, the criticism also reached series creator Ron Gilbert, who was disappointed with the reactions of the fans: He defends the graphic style of his new game and explains why he deliberately decided against a pixelated retro look (which many fans probably think would have been quite right).

Recently, the discussion about the graphics has intensified again: not only was a switch implementation announced on a Nintendo Direct, but also a first gameplay trailer was revealed, which finally also shows our favorite pirate Guybrush Threepwood in action. This confirms the suspicion that Gilbert’s new game has found a completely independent look, with a guybrush that doesn’t want to be reminiscent of its predecessors. Since then there has also been a lot of discussion in our forums: there are always people who don’t like the new style at all and complain so loudly that Ron Gilbert has decided not to publish any more material from the game. Other fans, on the other hand, like the new look or at least don’t mind it.

32 years of Guybrush Threepwood at a glance

Source: PC games

Poll: Which graphic style is the best?

That’s why we want to know from you today: Which Monkey Island had the prettiest Guybrush, in which game do you think the cult pirate looked the best? Take part in our short survey! It only takes a few seconds.

A hero in transition

In each Monkey Island, the hero’s appearance was revised, further developed and adapted to the technology of the time. While the first two Monkey Island games were still classic pixel adventures with 320×240 pixels, the great third part already had 640×480 pixels and an elaborate comic look. Part 4 switched to a mixture of 2D and 3D graphics, while part 5 Tales of Monkey Island was then rendered in full 3D. The remakes of the first two games, on the other hand, used sharp 2D graphics again, but added many modern effects. The latest part, Return of Monkey Island, which is due to appear in 2022, relies on an edgy comic style and a rather idiosyncratic character design. The animations also appear much coarser than, for example, in The Curse of Monkey Island. In the gameplay trailer you get a first taste.

Fancy a bit of nostalgia? Take a (short) journey through the entire Monkey Island series in our gallery.

Return to Monkey Island was surprisingly announced on April 4, 2022. Developer Ron Gilbert and his team Terrible Toybox managed to keep the project completely secret until then. In addition to Gilbert, Dave Grossmann is also involved in the game. He had already played a key role in the first two parts over 30 years ago. Tim Schafer, who also worked on the two originals, is not involved this time. No wonder: After all, Schafer is now the founder and CEO of the Double Fine development team, which recently celebrated great success with Psychonauts 2.