Sorry but I have no doubts at this point, Monkey Island 3a never existed and Ron’s been lying to us all along. Let us compare some of his statements through the years.
Yesterday, Twitter
(Does #ReturnToMonkeyIsland go approximately in the same direction of the story you had in mind back in the 90s or it ended up going very far from that?)
There was no story or design for MI3 back in 1992 so RtMI can't go in that direction. There was no "direction". RtMI is all new and better then I would have done in 1992.
2017, Official Thimbleweed Park Forums https://forums.thimbleweedpark.com/t/ron-gilbert-about-art-and-bad-endings/1686/67
(I don’t believe the rumour(?) that Monkey Island was planned as a trilogy …)
Sorry to disappoint you, but before MI 1 production ended, I had planned it as a trilogy. Don’t mistake “I didn’t have an ending” with not knowing what the theme of the ending should be and where the overall story needed to go. It’s how it works. Some people will tell you you have to have the ending before you begin, these people are just wrong and aren’t people who create (interesting) stuff. Part of the process of writing is understanding your story. By the time you finish, you realize it’s not the story you started with.
If you want to think that I had the whole MI trilogy in my head from day one, you will be disappointed. I knew large story beats, but that’s it and that’s all I would expect most story tellers to have. Ideas are guides, they are not a hard map to follow. It’s a process called creating. Good idea really come out fully formed.
2007, The World of Monkey Island https://web.archive.org/web/20080116135428/http://www.worldofmi.com/features/interview/gilbert.php
(Is the idea for Monkey Island 3 just in your head or do you have the script lying in a drawer somewhere?)
It's mostly in my head, but I did write out the basic story line, which I've probably lost by now. But it's still in my head.
