A producer tied to Return to Monkey Island hints that another sequel to a classic Lucasfilm Games point-and-click adventure game may be next. Return to Monkey Island is, to many fans of point-and-click adventure games, a miracle of sorts. Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, and Monkey Island's creators had left the company long before that. Now that Return to Monkey Island is back, hope for sequels to other beloved games is renewed - and now could become a reality.What made Return to Monkey Island possible isn't just the willingness of Monkey Island co-creator Ron Gilbert to make a new game. The biggest key to the project happening was a change in Disney's approach to making games. Disney not only allowed the property to be further developed by a third-party studio, Gilbert's Terrible Toybox, but it did so knowing point-and-click adventure games are largely a passion project. That's what makes fans of the genre so hopeful. Not just any tease for a new game would be taken seriously, but when the tease is coming from Craig Derrick, an executive producer at Lucasfilm Games, a tease demands to be taken seriously. Derrick recently posted a congratulations to the team at Terrible Toybox for creating a "true masterpiece of its genre." He then followed that up with a second post on Twitter reading, "I'm sure more will be said throughout the weeks and months ahead, but for now, I'll be standing by when it's time to go BACK TO THE MANSION!" The reference being to Lucasfilm Games' 1987 game Maniac Mansion.
While the reference is obvious, a tweet from Derrick in August, well before Return to Monkey Island's release, makes the connection clearer. Derrick retweeted a throwback post mentioning that Maniac Mansion was Lucasfilm Games' first title that it both developed and published. Derrick's comment on it was that, "I know that I must... GO BACK TO THE MANSION." Suffice to say, Derrick either wants to play Maniac Mansion again quite badly or there may be an effort to make a new sequel to the game.
Maniac Mansion already has a sequel, of course, and a very popular and beloved one at that. Day of the Tentacle was released in 1993 and is argued by some to be the best point-and-click adventure game ever made. Terrible Toybox's Ron Gilbert helped lead the development of Maniac Mansion, and Terrible Toybox's Dave Grossman co-directed Day of the Tentacle. It's a recipe for success if Terrible Toybox chooses to make another game with Lucasfilm Games.
There is a big hurdle to overcome, though. Point-and-click adventure games are not hugely successful ventures. They'll never have the potential audience of a shooter or an open-world action game. It's entirely possible that Return to Monkey Island isn't successful enough to justify more point-and-click adventure games with Disney's support. Having executive producer Craig Derrick asking for more is a good sign, though. Maybe a Maniac Mansion 2 from a resurgent Lucasfilm Games could happen after all.