Although it's not as popular as it once was, point and click adventure games are still beloved, especially among some of the older gamers. There are some classic 90s games from the likes of LucasArts which hold a special place in the hearts of many, such as Grim Fandango, Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2, and, of course, The Secret of Monkey Island. Speaking of the latter, Return to Monkey Island is due out soon, and the PC specs have recently been doing the rounds.
Return to Monkey Island was announced a few months ago, after some teasing from its creator Ron Golbert. Unsurprisingly, most fans will not assume that the upcoming entry in the classic series will require a beefy machine in order to run, given its more simplistic visuals. Necessitating the likes of an Intel i3 CPU, 8 GB of RAM, and only needing 4 GB of storage, according to Steam, most players probably won't struggle to run the game. What's perhaps most interesting is that it may not even need a dedicated graphics card, either.
That's according to a report from PCGamesN, and it does seem to make sense. Given that the game is asking for either a Radeon HD 7750 or a GeForce GT 640, which have 1 GB and 2 GB of VRAM respectively, it's not as if players will be needing to rush out to buy something like an Nvidia RTX 3090 Ti, which can easily set someone back around $1,500.
This sounds like a pipe dream in this day and age, but it's not the first time something like this has happened. Recently, it was announced that No Man's Sky would no longer require a dedicated GPU. It's a little more surprising for this game given its sheer size, but it's interesting to see that, in this modern era of needing to utilize the most up-to-date tech, it's possible for games to come along that don't need to break the bank in order to be playable.
As for Return To Monkey Island itself, the new entry is being written by the aforementioned Gilbert, who also worked on the first two Monkey Island installments. He is something of a prominent figure in the gaming industry, especially having worked for LucasArts on a number of titles, including Maniac Mansion. In fact, through that game, he was able to co-create the game development toolkit known as SCUMM. Short for Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion, this engine was an important piece of software in the development of some of the games that made LucasArts, and Gilbert himself, so beloved back in the day.
Return to Monkey Island will release on PC and Switch on September 19, 2022.