Ron Gilbert is a legend for adventure game fans. He's the game director for iconic classics including Maniac Mansion, the first two Monkey Island games, and more recently The Cave and Thimbleweed Park. Gilbert's next project is unknown, but he may have just told fans exactly what he's working on. In a recent post to Gilbert's blog, he told readers that he's working on a new Monkey Island game. There's just one big catch, which is that Gilbert posted it on April Fool's Day - but the story doesn't end there.
Normally, an April Fool's Day post would instantly be recognized as a joke. It wouldn't be surprising if many of Glibert's own fans saw his post about a new Monkey Island game and immediately dismissed it, but there is a problem with that interpretation. Gilbert has a long history of expressly not celebrating April Fool's Day. In 2021, Glibert explained that his Grumpy Gamer blog "has been and always will be April Fools' Day free" for 17 years running. Suffice to say, the situation's more opaque than a typical April Fool's Day post would make it seem.
The post on the Grumpy Gamer's blog for 2022 also acknowledges its long history of refusing to celebrate April Fool's Day. The post reads, "For 18 years the Grumpy Gamer blog has been April Fools' Day free because it's a stupid tradition. So to mix things up a little I'm taking this opportunity to announce I've decided to make another Monkey Island." The intention is to be cryptic, obviously. The intention is to confuse the situation so that nobody knows whether Ron Gilbert is actually working on a new Monkey Island.
There doesn't appear to be any immediately obvious evidence that could be used to dismiss Ron Glibert's claim. Gilbert is working on an unknown project, after all. What's been revealed via job listings has only confirmed that the studio is working on another point and click adventure game.
As for the Monkey Island license, the last known owner is, of course, Disney. The Monkey Island games were published by LucasArts, which was included in Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012. In 2016, Glibert asked Disney to sell him back the IP for the franchise. He also said at the time that getting back the Monkey Island IP would allow him to "make the game I want to make." It's possible that Disney did sell Monkey Island back to Gilbert in the years since, or it's possible Disney is licensing Monkey Island back to him.
One interesting detail to consider is that Gilbert was recently directly involved with a Monkey Island release. He signed over 7,000 Certificates of Arr!thenticity for the Limited Run Games release of the Monkey Island Anthology, made in partnership with Disney. Perhaps Gilbert was able to work something out with Disney spinning out of that. Here's hoping all the Monkey Island fans across the world have a new project worth looking forward to.
Source: Grumpy Gamer