The point and click genre has seen something of a resurgence in recent years, with games like Kentucky Route Zero and Thimbleweed Park helping to introduce the once popular formula to a whole new generation of gamers. Despite this newfound fandom, however, few could have predicted the release of a new Monkey Island game, with the series having lain dormant since the release of Tales of Monkey Island more than a full decade ago.
It's for this reason that adventure game fans were so excited when Ron Gilbert teased Return to Monkey Island in a blog post back in April, more so when it was revealed that the game was in active development and would be releasing before the end of 2022. Now, one dedicated fan over on Reddit thinks they may have found the game's actual release date by digging around in the metadata of the game's publisher's website.
Posting in the r/MonkeyIsland subreddit, a user named LowLevel revealed that they'd stumbled upon a few curious pieces of code while examining the metadata for the Return to Monkey Island section of the Devolver Digital site. One of the headings, which is labeled "date_override," is set to "Coming 2022," which is what is displayed on the site when viewed by a member of the public. The other, which is simply labeled "date," reads "2022-09-01T12:00:00.000Z," suggesting that Return to Monkey Island could be released on the first of September.
Though it is certainly possible that the code is simply being used as a placeholder, LowLevel goes on to point out that this same piece of code on the Cult of the Lamb section of the site lines up perfectly with the game's release date, suggesting that there's a good chance of it being accurate. As Return to Monkey Island is scheduled to appear at Gamescom next week, some are now predicting that a release date trailer will be shown at the event, possibly with a "coming next week" announcement at the very end.
If this does turn out to be the case, it wouldn't be the first time that a game's release date was revealed so close to it going on sale. In the June Nintendo Direct, for example, it was announced that the Portal: Companion Collection would be releasing that very same day. In fact, Nintendo has surprise-launched a lot of games in recent years, with many Switch titles having been made available within a week or so of being announced.
This wouldn't be the only big leak connected to the game either, with a recently-added Nintendo eShop listing appearing to have revealed Return to Monkey Island's $24.99 price tag. Of course, like this new release date speculation, this could prove to have been a placeholder. Thankfully, with Gamescom now just a few days away and the first of September looming large on the horizon, fans shouldn't have to wait too much longer to find out.
Return to Monkey Island releases in 2022 on PC and Switch.
Source: Reddit