Surprising few, Return to Monkey Island took home the Golden Joystick award for “PC Game of the Year”:
What is there to say at this point, really? ReMI has run victory laps since its day of release, and little suggests it will stop anytime soon.
How will it fare when we hand out the coveted Mojo Game of the Year, though? The competition is steep, so time will tell (Footnote: Actually, it’s the only Mojo-related game of 2022, so the odds look to be on its side.).
While Mastodon’s mainstream impact remains a question mark, we’re happy to see that Ron is throwing out some exclusives there. To wit:
Exciting times ahead!
And, if you haven’t already: follow us on the nascent social network!
Look, I don’t know much about the Bilbao International Games Conference, but it warms the heart to see Return of Monkey Island [sic] winning its “Best Art Direction” award.
Goddamn well deserved it is, too. And why not revisit our interview with Rex, the art director behind the game?
Vainamoinen, your patience has paid off: Return to Monkey Island will be released on GOG “soon.”
(That’s literally all I got.)
Xbox Wire—apparently an official Xbox publication—coaxed Dave Grossman into writing what looks suspiciously like a Buzzfeed article: “Eight Things You Should Know Before Playing Return to Monkey Island.” And, if you, like me, had prepared to drop some hardcore anchor facts during your next cocktail party, well . . .
Also, in case you don’t forget them, I want to be sure you understand that the “facts” are made up. The character in question is not a deliberate liar, but she is a confident person who is not very good at doing research. Please do not use Return to Monkey Island as a factual source for your Wikipedia article about anchors. It’s probably best not to use the game as a factual source, period.
. . . I apparently have a lot of opinions I have to reconsider.
Sometimes, the DIY spirit benefits us all. While waiting for an official OST, BillyCheers said enough is enough and released his own mix of the Return to Monkey Island tracks. You can download them from Google Drive.
Listening through the “Suites” version of the soundtrack—the complete score is also available—I gotta say . . . the three guys did a pretty OK job with the music. It’s almost like they knew what they were doing.
I wouldn’t be against a vinyl version of the OST, so, y’know, if anyone with some clout is reading this . . .
You saw it coming—possibly because you were using the pre-release version—and now it has landed: Quick and Easy’s Dinky Explorer. Meaning, Return to Monkey Island-hacking has arrived at your fingertips. Benzo says:
A huge amount of work has gone into supporting Return to Monkey Island and very little of it was by me. The wonderful Jan Frederick has restored my faith in open source, contributing tons of code to ensure that all file types in ReMI can be heard, viewed, decoded and dumped. He’s even added the ability to edit the functions within the main weird.dink script and create patches that others can then use.
Getting other people to do the work for you: It’s a page out of Thrik’s playbook. Now go find the secrets hidden within ReMI’s source files.
Apparently, November 8th will be another Return to Monkey Island milestone: Not only will we see the game available for more consoles, it’ll also be available with German voiceovers. Wunderbar! (That’s all I got.)
It might not come as much of a surprise, but Return to Monkey Island is headed to Game Pass next Tuesday, the 8th. That means PC, cloud, and, indeed, Xbox. Hey, it plays great on Switch, so the more console platforms, the merrier. Presumably, PlayStation can’t be far behind.
Update! PS5 confirmed, too.
OK, look, I haven’t watched it yet, but going by her chat with Ron, we can assume her interview with Grossman will be good, too. (And there probably won’t be any grilling.)
(More, maybe, as soon as I’ve watched it.)
By now, you probably have noticed that Return to Monkey Island sounds great, and not just in terms of voices and music. The sound design is fantastic, too, and to learn more about it, A Sound Effect sat down to talk with Elise Kates and Andy Martin, two of the leads behind that work.
When things were taking place deep inside wooded areas, like on Terror Island or on Melee Island, there was always an opportunity to work in some canopy wind that had a bit of a swish and sway up above everything else. But I had to dial the wind back a lot because Ron kept hearing it as the ocean in the distance. And since we were in the interior part of the island, we didn’t want it to sound like we were next to the beach. So, with a bit of sadness in my heart, I pulled that back.
Head over to A Sound Effect for a lot more.
It only makes sense that NRK (the Norwegian state broadcasting corporation) comes running to Mojo when they want the word out about yet another Return to Monkey Island interview. Read the story if you can, but for most, the video interview—which is quite good—is the better/only option.
This is where I would embed the video, but as the Norwegians giveth and the Norwegians taketh away, you’ll have to go to NRK to view it. Or, read the full transcript for all the dirt.
I’m going by second-hand information here, but that is what friend-of-Mojo Laura Cress told us in an email. I haven’t had a chance to watch her new interview with Ron yet, but looking at the chapter listing, it does indeed look like a must-watch...
So do just that. Watch. Because you must.
That’s right, ReMI and Terrible Toybox are setting their sights on “Best Storytelling,” “Best PC Game,” and “Best Studio.” Not shabby, and they’re up against some large, mainstream names—an honor being nominated, and yada, yada, yada definitely does apply here.
Yet, the masses can vote, so go show ol’ ReMI some love right here.
While waiting for an official soundtrack to drop—and the wait could be a long one—we decided to take matters into our own hands and release each and every track from Return to Monkey Island ourselves. That’s four hours of music, spanning more than hundred-and-forty files. You can download the OGGs or listen to the whole shebang on YouTube...
.... granted, completely without chapters/track indicators. We’ll leave it to the semi-professionals to do proper remixes of all of this. Need an example? Check out this twenty-minute mix our in-house DJ made of “LeShip,” arguably the best suite in the game.
Now, see if you can live up to that.
There is an easter egg in Return to Monkey Island that refers to a hidden island. That’s about what I want to say about it, as I don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t finished the game. (Though it’s really not a spoiler—it has nothing to do with the plot. Or much anything else.) If you know, you know: Read our article about Cogg Island right now if you so would like and learn about all its secrets.
Something that came up in the Mojo interview with Ron and Dave ahead of ReMI’s release was the promise of multiple endings:
Ron: Well, you will be happy to know that I think the ending…there’s a lot of interpretation that can go into the ending.
Marius: That’s what I meant.
Ron: So yeah, I think there will be that. And there’s five variations of the ending, depending on things you did. And they all kind of have different interpretations, and so I think you will find that good, yeah.
Well, it turns out that Ron was off by at least a factor of two, because our team of interns count no fewer than ten endings. Did you find them all? You may wanna refer to Mojo's handy breakdown to compare notes. And it goes without saying, folks who haven’t finished the game yet should stay far away.
Perversely, there appears to be an institutional expectation that there should be reviews of Return to Monkey Island beyond our own. But hey, we’re easy, we can play along. So check out our roundup of today’s many reviews beneath this rockin’ Nintendo launch trailer:
It’s been an excruciating wait, but finally, it has arrived, Return to Monkey Island. And, of course, we’ve put together a timely review, courtesy of one Jason.
To address the question many might have: There is a very small amount of spoilers in the review, but nothing that will ruin any real surprises. We’ve even put together a feature that blacks out all the screenshots. To re-enable them, just tap the toggle on top of the page or click the individual blurred-out images. (These do feature some minor spoilers.) And if you just want the conclusion, zero spoilers:
Return to Monkey Island is a gorgeous, vibrant, hilarious, endearing adventure that manages to live up to its pedigree (already a stratospheric standard before you account for the whole return-of-the-messiah business) and deliver a certain closure to three decades of frustrated innuendo -- but not too tidily, of course.
What else is there to say? Godspeed, everyone—take your time and enjoy the game. But only after reading our review.
“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” - Marius (probably)
If you think Mojo was done and dusted before Return to Monkey Island releases tomorrow, think again. Our German bureau chief, Marius, sat down with art director Rex Crowle to talk about the game, fandom, Marius’s hair… Everything!
Your mouth may be dry from anticipation, so refresh yourself with this nice, cool, tall drink while you await the game’s release, twenty-one hours from now.