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I have finished the game. I haven't seen all the endings and probably haven't catch the abundant details scattered around, but I think I have achieved the main goal of experiencing the game for what it is: a Gilbertian autobiographical journey that reminds us how things evolve, including our memories. The one item that struck me and that I've found deeply symbolic is the chest that contains the "Secret." The story of this game functions as a giant metatext that constantly mixes fiction and reality. The treasure chest, over-embedded with large gems to the point of looking cheesy, is the perfect metaphor for how longtime Monkey Island fans transformed "The Secret", enriching it for decades so that its image far outweighed its substance. Although the story emphasizes this stark difference between appearance and "reality", it is by no means an attempt to mock the way players have fed the myth. On the contrary, it should be seen as a charming way to remind players that this biographical journey does not belong to the authors alone. It is a sea voyage shared with the people who loved the games and nurtured their stories until they were revived by the original creators. In a sense, if you are a longtime fan, you helped make Return to Monkey Island what it is. The distinction between what players see and what the creators feel does not stop at the cheesy image of the chest. Both Guybrush and LeChuck manage to lift it with great difficulty: the box is quite heavy. This is where the duality comes up again. The same heaviness that the players use as a proxy for value or importance, for the authors represents instead the burden they had to carry when they decided to embark on this new adventure. "The Secret", now overgrown in people's minds, was a hot potato to handle. In many interviews, both Ron and Dave recalled the serious thinking they had to do before deciding to make the game. Some of the doubts were related to fan expectations and whether the authors would be able to meet them. I think some players do not easily realize how onerous the task was: no author other than Ron Gilbert would have experienced the pressure of giving the original story a conclusion... ... which brings me to my final thoughts. Was it a good game for me? Well, my expectations were very high, and from a writing point of view, Return to Monkey Island managed to exceed them. I wasn't interested in knowing what exactly "The Secret" would be; I simply wanted it to be told to me by the person who created this fantasy world. I was interested in closing a circle opened 30 years ago, and I have no doubt that my quest for closure has been finally satisfied. In the finale, the story touched my memories and my heart in two key moments: 1) reading the plaque at the exit of the park and in particular the text "The Original Secret" and 2) staring for an unmeasured amount of seconds at the contents of the chest. It didn't matter if it was a bit predictable: it was simple, it was consistent with the original story, and most importantly, its role in closing the loop justified for me the chest's enormous weight. And now that all the rides have been turned off, I just need to buy a new super-spoilery Monkey Island T-shirt!

I just did another quick playthrough trying to pick up some more trivia cards and achievements, but it's really the ending that's still on my mind... I've now played through about 5 of the different ending options, and read the Mojo article to look at the rest, but I have to say I've been thinking about the ending to Return non-stop since I originally finished it. My goodness... I think it's going to take me a really long time to process all this! Besides some of the items Jake mentioned above, for me the most emotional part was turning off the lights and leaving... First time I played it I don't think it really hit me as hard as my mind was so overrun with everything, but now the more I think about it I just start feeling really... emotional. I guess for me it's really about realizing that it's all over (for now) and it's back to reality. When Guybrush appears surprised to be back in the alley he makes the comment, "Oh no... not yet!" and the sadness in his voice.... just gets to me. And it's exactly how I feel. Personally, life's been super busy and stressful these past few years, and hearing about Return's announcement was an unexpected oasis of excitement that I didn't ever expect... and something I didn't realize I desperately needed. I've been looking forward to this game more than any game I've ever looked forward to in my life, and even though I've been swamped with both personal and work stuff these past few months, I carved out some time this week to focus on just this - escaping from reality for a few days to go on an adventure as a loveable pirate. Unfortunately, after this weekend (that's all I could allocate) it's really back to reality for me, and all those things I've been pushing off. Sure, both Guybrush and I can always return to those old adventures (and potentially even new ones?) but that has to wait until another day... as it's closing time. <Sigh> I really really loved the ending, and I think it tied together so many themes for me throughout the series, not just MI1 and MI2. If there was one reservation I had as I played Return, it was that I struggled for a while trying to piece together 'when' the story took place. And more specifically, it bothered me that there wasn't clearer references to some of the events from Escape. That being said, I loved the scrapbook and the reference to the 'cushy government jobs', and I felt they did a respectful job with Herman, and by the time I neared the end of the game I was okay with how they chose to handle past cannon. And then ending came. For me it felt like it made everything okay and wrapped all 6 chapters of the series together into one nice big bundle, allowing me to understand that these are all just separate adventures stories that are just meant to be... fun. And that's it. They allow Guybrush (and all of us) to escape from our lives as flooring inspectors, and temporarily enjoying being a pirate. And I'm okay with that. And if this is our last adventure together... I will be okay with that too. Damn... I feel like I've been stabbed in the heartstrings!

I read that a lot more positively: the thing they actually love doing together is going on adventures! The Secret is just absolutely not something they share and Elaine sees it as a self destructive fixation that Guybrush should drop. Guybrush in the early games is plagued by this quantum state of believing in himself against all the doubters, and the insane amount of insecurity that comes with it. The Secret (and his relationship with LeChuck) are framed in this game as almost regressive fixations Guybrush has — things that feel like once they enter his field of vision, they blind him from everything else he has accomplished. He finally gets away from LeChuck (for better or worse, due to his pursuit of the Secret) then finds the secret and (literally and figuratively) wakes up and looks around him and the mess he’s made, and has some clarity about what his situation is. I read finding the Secret almost as bottoming out. Elaine warned him on the walk to the monkey head that maybe he was about to bottom out, and all he can really do is make mild to wild excuses for it (while never fully copping to any of her points or the larger unspoken warning/concern). But a few minutes later it hits, and I think hits hard, and the wake-up moment isn’t far behind. But the part where Elaine and Guybrush are traipsing around the world getting embroiled in absolutely weird adventures or helping people solve their very complicated problems, that seems legitimately like things they have in common and is why they work well on screen together when they do. The sort of secretly-shared “I found some awesome map!” moment plays as that to me: the secret is long in their rear view mirror and now they’re off being their best selves, doing what they love. Yes I realize this is a cynicism-free read of the wraparound frame story! Anyway I feel like I’ve repeated myself in here too many times so I will stop until I have a better post. 😛

Loved the game. A collection of random thoughts (will probably have endless more) Boybrush's voice and personality are perfect. The callbacks in the final scene (the stone coins), the huge dial-a-pirate puzzle, Lechuck and the (forget her name, Lina?) pirate recounting the entire series one line after another, made to me pretty clear that we were heading to a 'reality is caving in on itself' moment. Speaking of the ending, the whole game is a fourth wall breaking exploration on the concept of nostalgia and satisfaction (while simultaneously being a fun adventure in itself) so to that level it would have been disappointing had the secret been grounded in some form of 'reality'. Once you learn how 'the magic of movies' works, you can't unlearn it, but you can become immersed in the fantasy once more. I remember David Lynch in a recent Zoom interview talking about 'Rear Window', one of the guests tells him that the man in the corner house playing piano is the actual original composer of the Alvin and the Chipmunks theme. Lynch laughs for a second and then he basically states 'I don't like to know things like that, as it lessens the immersion into the fantasy' Speaking of Lynch, this game explores very similar concepts regarding nostalgia and 'going home' to Twin Peaks Season 3 (a show that returned 25+years after the original series ended), & Ron tweeted that he liked the new series. This was after development on the game had begun, but we know he was already a fan of Lynch/Twin Peaks, so this is a cool connection. Spoilers for the show - the lights go out at the end. 'I'm more button than man now' Speaking of that dial-a-pirate puzzle, it was the only thing in the game I couldn't figure out. I didn't cheat but I sort of had to semi-brute force my way through. I got the spinning down but couldn't figure the date. Was worried that Elaine might no longer be with us in the scenes with Guy & Boy. I was nearly getting emotional and then she showed up at the end. Phew. Speaking of Elaine, I loved her social pursuits & her semi-distant relationship with Guybrush. When I found the picture torn in half and then Elaine was investigating his path of destruction, I legitimately became concerned they were going to break up. It started to feel like a dark message was being brewed and that Guybrush would be made to pay for a lifetime of sins. But nope he just leaves Wally hanging again lol. Genuinely feel a replay urge to see the different lines of dialogue, which I haven't felt for a while with Monkey Island. I think Tales maybe didn't take this concept very far. I'm finished speaking

When you finally learn the Secret of Monkey Island

Without joining the deeper discussions here, I just wanted to say that it’s SO nice to read all those many different thoughts - the plausible ones as well as the totally crazy ones. I love them all! The days before the release I was a bit worried, that after everyone played ReMI it’ll be some kind of “Well, okay. That’s its. Back to normal things I guess…” But I’d never thought that there would be so much deep stuff to talk and read about. I’m really glad that this whole great thing here continues even after we all finished this thing. Thanks everyone! 👌

The ones who walked through the door at the very end were LeChuck, Guybrush and Captain Lila. All three resemble the three children we saw at the beginning. How can this be interpreted?

As the newly moved in Resident grump here who is probably the most down on the game as anyone in this thread, my issue is very much not about the secret. Or at least not directly. I, and I am sure several others had a general idea of what Ron always wanted the secret to be, let's be honest here, the hints of it being a theme park were around since early in Melee Island. So I figured that A) The Secret would be underwhelming by design and B) He would go even heavier into the theme park angle. That wasn't hard to deduce, heck I am sure if we look around predictions going back decades a T-shirt would be one of the more popular guesses. Sadly my issue with Return is more in the journey itself. The more I look at it, the more I find the budget is likely bursting at the seams, the art style was likely chosen for that very reason, and I admit, it isn't one i liked at first, and it didn't much grow on me either. Even places like Melee and Monkey Island themselves seemed like shadows of their former selves. Some of that I think I could have been okay with if there was a bit more of the idea that time was moving forward, and Melee was a relic of the past, an idea the early game seemed to flirt with, but one that got dropped along with many other ideas as the game continued. But with that drop there was nothing to fill its place. Elaine came off to me as disinterested and had no real role to play in the story at all, something that hasn't happened in a Monkey Island, ever. Stan was very un-Stan like, almost subdued. LeChuck was the opposite of a threat, and the new pirate leaders vanished from the story. I can one hundred percent be on board with ambiguity, but it is VERY hard to do well. And as much as it would give me joy to say I had felt that here, I honestly did not. But it's not the ending. It really was the Journey. The puzzles were generally weak, with a couple of exceptions, very few if any came off as cheeky or clever. The new islands were bland, the story tying it all together was too. It was essentially the MI2 story all over again, but with less urgency and less interesting character. Guybrush wants a thing, LeChuck also wants the thing. That was about it. I guess what I had always considered key to a Monkey Island game was a sense of adventure, a cheeky sense of humor, clever puzzles, and over the top characters that I ended up loving or loving to hate. They tended to build up to something, often to subvert it a bit at the end, and that was ok. And here some of that was there, at times, but it never quite gelled for me. And the worst part is I feel it could have had that journey to the ending if it actually had a climax, if the new people and islands were memorable, if I had some stupid puzzle that stuck with me in its absurdity. And had it not been Monkey Island I likey wouldn't be as down on it as I am. I love this series, deeply. Have since I first played it on a 386 in the 1990s during my freshman year. Every one in the series, even Escape were some of the best of their eras as far as adventure games went. This just felt painfully average in so much. Not the acting, that was top all around, you and Murray are always a treat. And honestly that is a feel I get from other places where there are more people like me who are a bit down on the title. Yeah the ending bothers some, but I think a lot of it is the experience as a whole. The great bits can shine through at times, but so much never quite felt like it lived up to its predecessors. I still rank it above Escape, at least

In the ending, you can take a photo as a pirate, which was also possible in real life at PAX and Gamescom. 🙂 More generally, the recreation of Melee shown at events was a giant real-life reference to the ending. 😁

Jesse Harlin's orchestration of the Woodtick Suite for MI2:SE is, bar none, my favorite cue from the entire series. (Yes, including the main theme, LeChuck's theme and A Pirate I Was Meant to Be.)

This is sort of a boring sounding answer but I think the composers probably just liked it a lot and wanted it to be in the game. Even with that aside, I know it was a low point for Laserschwert but it was a huge high point for me. Woodtick has always felt like a backwater pirates paradise, and the music has always had the feeling of a sea chanty. It makes sense that you’d hear some sailor playing it when out on the sea or docked at a port. The whole vibe of the island hopping was very low key and shaggy, honestly more “cozy” than any of the other games, in a way I really liked. The Woodtick music felt right for me in those moments, more than the very epic and high adventure sailing themes from Curse would have. apologies for the small rant here. I just loved hearing that cue on the map and feel the need to defend it.

If you haven't already done it, I suggest: Asking Toothrot for quotes of "At The End Of The Plank". A beautiful, beautiful novel. Reading Toothrot's philosophical manifest, entirely. Among other things, he presents us with the new version of an old question:

I went for an hour walk today and could not stop thinking about this game. Yes, it hasn't even been a week, but it has stayed with me and most likely always will. I think, in some ways, the best way to sum up the ending to this game is that if someone simply read it on paper, verbally heard it, or watched the ending on YouTube, the entire message would be lost on them. You need to experience the full journey and context yourself to truly understand and appreciate it. Yes, even then it might not be for everyone, nor should it, but I think at the very least it can be appreciated for what it is. I guess in some ways, that's why I get a little annoyed when I see some the top rated comments on YouTube for the ending are "yet another meta ending" and are clearly from people who didn't play the game, didn't give it a chance, and simply searched for the ending on YouTube. Yes, there is some meta subtext to the ending and, truthfully, the game earns it because Monkey Island is one of the first games and series to have done it right. Beyond that though, there is so much more going on to appreciate and the game also invites you to give it some thought as well. It doesn't simply dictate the ending and themes for you, it invites you to put your own spins on it. It creates an experience that is personable for each, individual person, with no one correct answer and interpretation. I think that's the reason why so many of us here have had a similar experience when first experiencing the ending, myself included. Initially, I felt empty and questioned "Wait, that seriously can't be it?" Then, I kept thinking about it, I replayed the final section several more times, listened to more dialogue, opened the chest containing the secret, saw different epilogues, and I immediately appreciated and loved it. I never played a game where my reaction did a 180 in the span of a few minutes. The game and ending is absolutely brilliant and keeps giving back. Monkey Island has always been great with storytelling, especially when it comes to environmental clues. A favorite example of mine is actually from Tales. That game has a line from Morgan in chapter III that she can speak a little monkey. At the time, it seemed like a simple throwaway joke, but then in the next chapter she mentions she communicated with Jacques the monkey, who informed her on the scope of LeChuck's plans. It wasn't explicitly stated in that scene, but the player could surmise that she could speak to Jacques because she spoke a little of the language. It's just a nice subtle form of storytelling that invites the player to connect the dots. Each game does it to a certain degree, but Return does this in a spades to an amazing degree. It's ingrained in almost every line of dialogue and location. I initially thought that there was something truly disturbing going on beneath the surface of the series. While that can still be seen as accurate, I think the reality is the opposite; there was something truly wholesome going on just beneath the surface. A father bonding with his son and retelling tales of his life, whether they are 100% accurate, embellished, or fantasy. It's up to each, individual person to decide.

I didn't read it that way. To me they are two different events. The ending of MI2 is something that happened to Guybrush (maybe only in his imagination, but still it happened to him) and the beginning of RtMI is a different event that happened years later to his son: a reenactment of his father's stories. As soon as the reenactment ends, the kids stop imagining the place as Big Whoop and it becomes the real place where they are playing. To me, RtMI doesn't starts where or when MI2 ends, but it starts with a scene that simply evokes that event.

I think this slow turn starts from the very very beginning even if it doesn’t seem like it. The prologue reveal of Boybrush seems like it’s one thing (I’m Guybrush as a kid in the carnival!), then you’re filled with increasing uncertainty (wait who am I? where is this? is this even the game?), then the ground comes in underneath you when you meet Guybrush (I’m guybrush’s kid playing around reliving one of his old stories). That arc is not exactly what the main game does, but it tells you immediately that it’s a game where you should brace for the unexpected, but also embrace the unexpected. Then the voodoo lady gets into it as well, including revealing her name and pointing out that maybe learning it is less fun than not knowing. Then all the meta storytelling stuff with the Chums. I think the ideas “this story is going to rattle itself apart, don’t trust it, but enjoy the ride” was reiterated enough times that I was ready to be upended by the time I reached the end of the game. I don’t think everyone was, or even if they were they resented that the game made them do that, but personally I was ready for it. In a way I wasn’t with Thimbleweed. (Thimbleweed ending discussion below) With Return, I have seen a handful of traditional endings at this point and didn’t need more of it. Curse was extremely clean, simple, romantic. Escape was bombastic and comedic, almost a send up of itself. Tales was (intending to be) epic, cinematic, full of voodoo and lore. With Return, as the game went on and I got closer and closer to the end, I found myself not knowing what I wanted to see specifically, but hoping whatever it was would be a pressure release on all the parts of the game and story that hadn’t been retread in all the sequels, and that’s almost entirely what the focus was on. I was ready for it to get meta and bizarre, to rattle itself apart and leave me wondering what I just saw, and was really happy when it happened. I don’t think, though, that I was expecting the conversation on the bench afterwards, or the little final conversation with Elaine, or the note in the scrapbook. That slowly closing epilogue was a secret earnest closer on the story that ended up exceeding and subverting my expectations. I had braced for an ending that wouldn’t be about the characters and would just be pure meta, and was so relieved when it didn’t.

With so much already said that hits the nail on the head, it's hard to find something worthwhile to contribute here. I finished the game last night and I can add my voice to the chorus of those who absolutely loved it. It's pretty much the perfect ending to Monkey Island and I can't imagine how another MI game could be made that doesn't diminish the potency of the ending (although I would love to be proved wrong). I have several minor gripes, but my only major one is that none of the solutions to puzzles made me feel smart – which is one of the main things I love about adventure games. It's interesting to me how polarising the ending has turned out to be. Through the lens of my day job, I'd say that this is at least partly down to expectation management. My feeling has always been that there's an unspoken exchange between author and audience at the start of any story where the author says "if you can suspend your disbelief for these specific things, put your trust in me and invest your time in this story. In return I will reward you with a compelling narrative.", and if the rules of what I need to suspend my disbelief for change part way through I'll feel cheated because that wasn't the deal I agreed to. This is particularly bad when it happens at the end of the story after I’ve already invested my time and emotions in it. The end of Thimbleweed Park felt like a fuck you for exactly this reason, I put my trust in the game to tell me a story after it set my expectations and then it turned around and required a completely different set of expectations. I think what’s interesting about RtMI is that it somehow managed to gently change my expectations over the course of the game, without me really even noticing, to the point that ending didn’t feel like a cheat. I’m not really sure how the game pulled this off, or why it worked better for some people than others.

Dude I know. I, uh, was very happy with how things played out in Return on this front.

The more I sit and think on Return to MI, the more appreciation I have for Tales of Monkey Island (which I already really like). The Crossroads (with the automated boat ride, vignette scenes, the MI2 tunnel music) fits perfectly in with the now revealed secret.

Yes, I think our criticism comes from a place of love. We adore these games and so we hold them to a higher standard. I agree that the game feels less populated than other MI games (I didn't play with the writer's cut on, maybe that will enhance it). I don't know if it's because it was made by a smaller group of people (probably not smaller than the first game), they ran out of money, or maybe it got rushed out and lacked an additional layer of polish. Something about the characterizations of Elaine, Stan and LeChuck also didn't sit right with me, as if they were being subdued in some way. I thought it would all come together in the end and be explained away by whatever the "twist" was, but instead it rings hollow on deeper examination. This was always Guybrush's story from the beginning, but we grew to love all these characters along the way. Even someone as two-dimensional as Murray (or one-dimensional when you flatten him) deserved a better send-off here. All these elements are kind of abandoned in the aftermath when it's all left up to our interpretation. It becomes a sort of Winnie the Pooh syndrome, where it's revealed that we were Christopher Robin all along (or maybe Calvin & Hobbes is the better analogy). But I don't really know anymore. Maybe when enough time has passed and the dust is settled, I can return to this series with a fresh set of eyes (after I've forgotten most of the puzzles) and enjoy it without the burden of expectation. That's my hope, anyway.

I just finished the game yesterday and I absolutely loved it! I think it's going to take me a looooong time to process that ending, but I have to say it left me feeling really, really satisfied... in a really ambiguous way! I literally could not stop laughing when I saw the t-shirt! I just starting chuckling and couldn't stop! I think this has a lot do with my low expectation of the secret all along. I knew there would no way that the secret could live up to hype. Shit, guess I was wrong! Hahaha Man.... I loved that game! Absolutely gorgeous, and I really liked how they tied in the whole series (personally, I really loved the nods to Curse, Escape and Tales). Now to go back and try to finish up some of those achievements... I don't know how else to describe it, but that game was a masterpiece!

When you finally can use the horse armor (final scene spoiler)...

So I just got my Dead For Real achievement for waiting several minutes underwater. A bit chilling, in a very good way. It also trods upon any idea I might have had about straightforward linearity. Yay, my first ending! ? Make sure you look at the Horse Armor in each new location, as it also updates.

Really glad to hear I'm not the only one who got emotional at the end. I flat out started crying and whenever I think back on it, I start getting teary eyed. Like, the ending just felt so profoundly beautiful to me. And that last moment with Guybrush sitting on the bench, it left me with this warm but sad feeling of finality that I've always wanted. I've always been one of the people that weirdly enough, didn't want the world to be real. I've always felt like it gave the series this sort of emotional core to it. That no matter how mundane and soul crushing the real world can be, there's an escape in this fun pirate world we're all so invested in.

I can't recall if I ever saw the ending of Fresh Prince but 'lights out' has long been associated with death / the end. Think Shakespeare's 'Out brief candle'. Trope it may be, but only because it's such a well understood metaphor. I cried buckets when it was our turn.

Ew yeah i retract this theory 😂

I think despite my frustration with not fully figuring it out (I didn't take my time with it and was eager to get to the end) thematically wise it's kind of perfect. One final Trial to get to the secret and it's both a shrine to a bygone era of physical copyright protection methods (secure but crackable) and classic adventure gaming puzzles.

I just played a little bit of Monkey1, just strolling through Mêlée town. I must say, it’s pretty chilling walking through High Street now. 😨

Woodtick's theme is my favorite and also the one that gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it. I found it made sense to put it in the map. But I realized that a variation of the Woodtick theme, as its own progression, is present in the theme of the Melee Island Museum. I thought it was a nice way to dig up the pirate memories! I don't know if anyone had the same feeling as me listening the Museum Theme, but I talked about it with other friends and they said yes.

I have been thinking a while about Guybrush-Elaine relationship too... To me, the relation between them has been weird in this game too. And the character of Elaine seemed to be a little different and lack of energy and importance. But... thinking about it... Maybe it could have an interpretantion after knowing the ending. In this game (even in the first one and the second), the adventures of Guybrush are happening apart from Elaine's goals. It's like Elaine is doing adult and mature things, you know, saving the Caribbean from scurvy and using important pamphlets and such things. She seems to be doing some political actions, something very real, mature and from our era. She seems (as many of you have pointed) very disconnected from Guybrush. And, in the other hand, Guybrush is fighting Dead Pirate Zombies, looking for fabulous treasures and living thousands of adventures (something less real and more from an imaginary world). So that's could be the reading of the situation between Guybrush and Elaine. Maybe, in the real world, they used to go together to the park but, later, Elaine enjoyed the experience from a more mature point of view. And maybe Guybrush was the only one that really believed his own stories and got lost inside his own imagination. And that's should be why they are never together in this game for a long time, because Guybrush is in his own world and, as reflection of the real world, Elaine is with his own things and thoughts. Sorry for my English in all my posts. I'm not English native either.

I agree. I have looked for something in the ending that would satisfy my desire to find a darker meaning in the story. The authors have designed an ending that makes this interpretation (and many others) possible. That makes me think of two things: months ago, someone wondered if Ron would actually reveal the secret. One of the predictions was: "He went full-Lynchian and he doesn’t know if he did reveal it or not." the authors did it again. After thirty years we're still discussing the meaning of an ending in the same way we would discuss the color of an unheard fallen tree. That's the same vibe that I get from both this game and the first two games of the series. It seems to me that Guybrush is a character involved in a fantasy from which he cannot easily escape. Yes, and this might also explain what Rex said about a "flat" art style being a good choice to support the narrative: the characters are actually pieces of cardboard animated by Guybrush's imagination.

EDIT: I didn't notice that the screenshot I posted had been already mentioned in the thread. I'll change it with this banana picker:

The "Seckrit" sign that Captain Madison and co. use as LeChuck bait is misspelled the same way Dr. Fred's secret lab is in Maniac Mansion.

Had Ron and Dave made this game in 1992, I'm sure it would have been very different. But unless I'm mistaken, I believe the notion that Ron HAD ideas for MI3 back in 1992 assumes facts not in evidence. I mean, I'm sure his mind wasn't a total blank. But has he ever said that there was any vision for MI3 back in the day? Again, I might be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that never existed. It seems that for those who feel dissatisfied with the ending, there is a theme of feeling like they just wanted closure. But may I suggest the possibility that you're just overthinking it? I mean, there is a lot of ambiguity around the specifics, but I'm not sure how much more clear RtMI can be about the core revelation. The Secret of Monkey Island is that these stories are fantasies inspired by an amusement park. And in the fellas' defense, they've basically been telling us this for 30 years — in ways both subtle and less subtle — right from the first two lines of the first game. What constitutes "reality," so to speak, is much more unexplained and nebulous. Do Boybrush and Elaine exist? Where are the lines between Guybrush's fantasy and reality? What's the back story? How do all of these pieces fit on the timeline? My hunch is that these are intentionally very undefined because — to put it bluntly — who cares? It's interesting to ponder, but at least as far as this chapter is concerned, as they say quite explicitly, that's not the part that really matters. I'm not sure if the disappointment some people experience stems from feelings of ambiguity beyond the secret, or that RtMI's big reveal is hammering home confirmation that the secret is a fairly obvious thing that's been staring us in the face the whole time. (Or from something else, I don't mean to put words in anybody's mouth.) But FWIW, I really don't think there's a lot of wiggle room around what the core of the revelation is. Like I said way upthread, I get the impression that people's comfort with this ending largely comes down to whether you're comfortable with a lot of peripheral ambiguity, or if you really want everything spelled out to the letter. This definitely isn't the latter. But just because an ending is ambiguous, that doesn't mean it can't bring closure. My opinion is that yes, the game obviously and quite intentionally leaves all kinds of loose ends hanging. But when it comes to the primary themes of the story, the heart of the matter, the capital T Truth at its core, it really wraps things up quite nicely while still giving us a bunch of other stuff to play around with. And speaking for myself, that's what I want from a Monkey Island game. I don't want everything spelled out. I don't want a neat package where everything is carefully explained. To me, that hazy, ambiguous half real, half fantasy isn't the thing Monkey Island is trying to work through to get to a destination. That IS the destination.

Thank you!!, there was a debate by the publisher since they didn't find the original cover too appealing so they asked me if I wanted to give it a shot :), and I thought about making it as a fairy tale book with subtle bright colors. I hope Ken and Roberta get to see it.

HEY! Finishing Return, it blew my mind to see Stan being a constructor of "Adventure Parks". I never saw that coming. There was no hint at this anywhere in the whole series. Right? Wait, hold on.

Like a lot of people here, I initally had the "what the hell" reaction. And I thought about it, for several hours and up to this morning. Then the whole thing grew on me, it just clicked! I wrote some scattered notes about the ending, which I'd like to share with you: So, what did I gather from all of this? I think that the secret (in a way) is that the Monkey Island saga are Guybrush's adventures, as told by him to his son (kind of like how it happens on the TV show How I Met Your Mother, which means: exaggerating them and changing their details when he feels like doing so) . This reasoning allows for every single game - even the monkey head becoming a robot - to be canon (if we really want to talk about canon anyway). The games are just a visualization of Guybrush's adventures, but in the way he tells them to his son: e.g., EFMI happened, but some details might not be necessarily real. The actual secret that Guybrush found that day might not be important (and in fact it might have been fairly disappointing to him, a thing which brought him out of the "loop" of the obsession over this fabled thing). But the bottomline is that this is a father teaching a valuable lesson to his son: if you build up exaggerate expectations over something, it will NEVER live up the hype and you might risk obsessing over it endlessly. Of course there's still some room for interpretation, IMHO; the very ending might even be literal, in the sense that Monkey Island stories might be: In part tales of Guybrush in his very early youth, lived in the times in which the very concept of pirating was starting to go out of fashion and "modernity" was starting to sink in; In part outright fiction which he made up for his son while working (after his youth) as a flooring inspector for a pirate themed amusement park. This reasoning might even justify the fact that Elaine found the map to a treasure, just to help him relive those same very old adventures. Finally, the final decision about what the secret is up to the player: what was the secret? Gold and jewels? Friendship? It's better not to know it? Anyway we decide, this choice will directly influence the post-credit scene, which might actually might constitute the only things which we are sure that really happened in that world. Again, we are the one to decide what really happens! We can even re-open the "employees only" door with Stan's keys and take the backwards path for a different ending with a different post-credit scene (Guybrush and Elaine sailing on a ship), which might just mean: Guybrush didn't want to believe/know the secret, so he just bailed on it, with the consequence that the MI stories are real and not some kind of metaphore. I think this is a clever way to try and make everyone happy.

Hello! I finished the game last night, had the classic "Huh.", and then warmed up to it. Then I went to bed. And this morning, my partner asked me about the ending, so I told her what happened. And I talked and talked, tried to explain what was going on, which I couldn't, but I kept talking in excitement, and the longer I talked the more tears where flowing. Really!? Stupid game makes me cry and I don't no why? I wasn't able to explain really what was going on, but I felt this strong warmth from this game. The letter really hit my heart. Can't even make sense of all these feelings while writing you this. And I love it. I already miss the game, and I want to replay it immediately.

Again, I apologize for my English. I’m French. I’m trying my very best. Also, I realized I barely read other people’s posts because I was so in shock about what I experienced. I absolutely love these interpretations, and it seems like we all felt the same way while finishing the game. I, too, had to stop the game and just think for 10 minutes, then talk to my wife, then think again… It’s now been two hours, and I feel like I’m not gonna be able to sleep. I especially love demone’s analysis. Thank you so much for that. And yes, for sure, you’re both right. We don’t need a final battle. I’m so into that kind of stuff, usually, I didn’t realize how powerful it actually is to just not have one. I love the fact that Guybrush is finally at peace with his life. I was playing with my daughter earlier today, and I couldn’t stop thinking about old Guybrush telling fun and silly stories to his kid. It’s so touching. The last shot is literally him being at peace. It’s beautiful. I felt like I was seeing both Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman, finally done with this chapter of their lives. … Also, I just realized I’m talking to Dominic Armato, which is adding another meta level to everything. I love your voice, by the way – my family has been hearing you almost non-stop for two days. A bit unrelated, but now, every time I play a new game, my three year old daughter looks at the main character and goes: “… Is it Guybrush?!?”

I just finished the game and I feel like I really need to process this ending. I’ve been dreaming of this game since the 90s, and I still can believe it now exists. It really felt deep to me. I actually love the Lynch comparison because it made me felt the same way I felt while finishing S3 of Twin Peaks. Is it a work of madness or genius? Or even a bit of both? I love the animations, music, voice acting so much… It really felt like a big adventure. The ending though… The Secret actually was exactly what I wanted it to be. This has been my theory for decades… and at the same time, I love the fact that the game is still meta about it, and decides to not give a clear answer. It felt abrupt. And I almost yelled: “That’s it?!?” But then I realized that was exactly the reaction the game wanted me to have, and this is what I love about Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman. They are artists, and they want us to reflect on ourselves while they are reflecting on themselves. The game triggers a reaction that pushes us to think about our own feelings and expectations. Even though I would also have love to have a true last battle against LeChuck, I feel like it would have gone against the message of the game, about the frustration it wanted us to feel. I, therefore, feel frustrated but compelled at the same time - which is weird - a bit lost, emotional, for sure… I honestly think they couldn’t have make a better game. I really feel grateful, and I’m so happy that it’s getting so many good reviews. I’m sorry, I feel like I’m not saying anything interesting. Just thinking out loud with my broken English. This, definitely, was a ride.

The game gets a 0/10 for me for not being able to pick up the staple remover. …but besides that, this may be the best or 2nd best game. I’m doing a replay on casual mode to see if there’s anything I missed.

WARNING: THIS THREAD AND ARTICLE ARE AS SPOILERY AS IT GETS! It turns out that the very end of Return gets pretty ragged and frayed; the different things you do in the final few scenes can tip the games conclusion and epilogue in many directions. Mojo has compiled all the ones they’ve found so far and it’s already a whopping ten variations. That article is a great writeup of what’s currently known about the different endings and epilogues including full video capture of all of them and how to get them. (Pour one out for the Mojo staffers who watched the entire credit sequence dozens of times to tease all these endings out and then verify how they are reached!)

You’re forgetting the t-shirt! ☝️☝️

First post, finished the game yesterday and loved it but also really confused by it. I'm not sure how to take the ending, none of them actually makes sense to me. If the stories take place in a theme park, the fact that it ends in a theme park is actually not an endig. It's just a child being interrupted while playing games. Or if grown up Guybrush was just imagining it (since this one didn't end with Guybrush being a child again), that's just weird. In that case, he has a severe case of split personality disorder, and I seriously doubt that's what they were going for. I don't think the ending has a logical explaination, and it was perhaps made that way, so that every possible ending works and doesn't work at the same time. That's either genius or very lazy. The only problem I have with that is that if I pretend one ending is the true ending, there's always something else that contradicts it. If the whole series is just Guybrush telling stories to his son, then that means we haven't been playing as Guybrush, but his son all along. But that doesn't explain why it ends in a theme park, even less so twice. It means that all the stories are fake, made up by a very creative father (Guybrush), and reenacted by his son. But if so, why the need for the father to actually be Guybrush? Why not just one of Guybrush's parents? Who is the one with the vivid imagination here? The boy or the father? The more I think about wrapping my head around the ending, the more confused I get. Because while the ending to Monkey2 was a shock, there were much less variables and easier to theorize about. RTMI has a ton of variables and everything contradicts something else, and, there are several endings that ends up not really making any sense without a huge amount of suspension of disbeliefe and ignoring all the signs that points to something else. RTMI seems less a Monkey Island game, and almost more a commentary on the Monkey Island series and its aging fandom. It seems to exist on a higher level than the others.

When you go the courtroom and hand out the documents from the guy in the island, then ask the judge to cite a statute, he literally tells you to STFU 🤣 Then Guybrush says "ok I withdraw the question"

I don't want to go back to this well too much but I really do think a lot of the stuff that worked less well for me in ReMI may partially be put down to the lack of the third member of the writing team. When I think of what Schafer's hallmarks are in his writing I think of: Super clearly defined characters. People who may only be on the screen for a short amount of time but you know exactly who they are and what their deal is. I think of Quohog, and Emmett in FT. I think of the Tube/Elevator demon in Grim, and Chowchilla Charlie. He's really good at just distilling a character in a way where you only need a small amount of dialogue to get exactly who they are. Evocative world building. He's not the sort of person who is going to give you a big old lore dump, but he knows how to, with real efficiency, give a setting a sense of place through dialogue. You don't know anything really about the world of Full Throttle in terms of its history or even precise location. But you know exactly how the game wants you to feel about it, to the point that you don't even really wonder. Similar with the Land of the Dead. These are breathing places, you get a sense of how they fit into the wider world. Killer Dialogue Trees. I don't know how else to put this I just think he's really, really good at dialogue tree humour, witty comebacks and the like. And these are all the things I feel like ReMI could have more of. I might be giving Schafer too much credit there - maybe it has more to do with the passage of time than it has to do with him, but to me at least it feels like the holes in the flag line up pretty well. It's funny because I felt the opposite way about it. I felt in TWP I was being pandered to against my will, they were just throwing in references and pointing to them and grinning and it worked for me about 50% of the time. While in ReMI while I feel like there were a lot of callouts, I always felt like they were well-implemented. Either they were small enough that I don't feel like they were too lampshaded, or the way they were lampshaded was just funnier then in TWP (I did enjoy the 'say the line' stuff with Cobb). Or they were quite poignant. I think it's sort of touching that the last puzzle in the game is a codewheel, say. TWP to me felt all on-the-nose, all the time. ReMI felt to me like there was more texture in the way it used nostalgia.

There's a "Pappapisshu" on Terror Island if you touch the thorns on the rocky beach.

The ending reminded by a ton of Pan’s Labrynth. if you haven’t seen it (sorry spoiler ahead) there is this moment at the end where you decide if this fantastical world of creatures is a way for the girl to handle the awfulness of what is going on around her…. Or an actual escape to a fantasy world. the fact you can go back out with tells me that. Also it seems like this ending (which I love) allows more games to be created if ever wanted to. I cannot tell you how much I have just lived this game the past couple days. I wanted it to last forever. I have just been so starved for a game to feed me an amazing story and humor like this. Im going to replay it about 55 times to make sure I get everything. fantastic work all around.

I only played it once, so my memory might be fuzzy: I like that in Return, nobody actually wonders what the Secret is. Right? Guybrush and LeChuck just want it. Or do I remember it wrong? Anyway, I really enjoyed that stubbornness of the two. They are so fixated on the goal that they lost themselves.

Random question, but does anyone know if there is a way to free Wally?