The sixth Monkey Island game, it was released for macOS, Nintendo Switch, and Windows on September 19, 2022,[1][2][3][4][5] for Linux on October 26, 2022,[6] for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on November 8, 2022,[7] and for iOS and Android on July 27, 2023.

[19] Guybrush and Elaine's son Boybrush (Ava Hauser) is playing with his friend Chuckie (Courtenay Taylor) at an amusement park, re-enacting his father's adventures.

Having learned that LeChuck has obtained a map to the exact location of the secret, Guybrush travels to Mêlée Island in an attempt to gather a crew and ship to get there first, but the new Pirate Leaders Madison, Lila, and Trent refuse to back his venture.

With his options limited, Guybrush obtains a magical eyepatch that disguises him as a zombie, allowing him to infiltrate LeChuck's crew before they shove off.

After washing up on Monkey Island, Guybrush follows the map but falls into a trap by the Pirate Leaders, who had intended it for LeChuck.

The Pirate Leaders betray Guybrush and throw him off a cliff before setting sail; LeChuck, realizing the deception, pursues them.

Arriving at the International House of Mojo, Guybrush learns the secret is hidden inside a safe locked by five golden keys, which have been scattered.

Following a series of clues, Guybrush travels the Caribbean to find each of the keys, frequently leaving a trail of destruction in his wake due to his single-minded obsession with the secret.

LeChuck appears and steals the chest, taking it back to Monkey Island to perform the necessary ritual to open it and obtain the secret.

He emerges in a theme park recreation of Melee Island, revealing it to be the true setting of all his adventures, with LeChuck and the others all being animatronics.

The game offers multiple different post-credits scenes depending on the player's choices in the final sequence.

At PAX 2019, Nigel Lowrie, founder of Devolver Digital, mentioned to Gilbert that he knew John Drake, who was in charge of licensing at Disney.

[8] Gilbert and Grossman met in Seattle in January 2020[23] to discuss ideas, and felt confident that they could create a good game.

He believed that by taking this approach, it would preserve the freshness of humor without sacrificing the planning that was needed in guiding other aspects of the game, such as artwork and puzzle design.

Gilbert hired Crowle to create an innovative style for Return to Monkey Island as the art director.

[8] Dominic Armato, the voice actor for Guybrush Threepwood in the previous games, was signed on to reprise the role[28][29] and was happy to accept the offer.

Earl Boen, the original voice of LeChuck, retired from acting in 2017 and gave the developers his blessing to recast the role.

[10] The user interface differs from the clickable verbs or the pop-up action menu of The Curse of Monkey Island (1997).

When the cursor stops over a screen hotspot, a brief message of what Guybrush is thinking appears, suggesting the action he will take if the player clicks.

[8] The developers added camera zooms, pans, and pulls to draw attention to specific elements, which would have been difficult in the early 1990s.

[10] On April Fools' Day 2022, Gilbert announced on his blog that he was working on a Monkey Island game, surprising the industry.

As a pre-order bonus, players would get an in-game horse armor item that stays in their inventory and has no function, a humorous reference to a controversial downloadable content (DLC) for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

[2][1][43][44] In May 2022, after the first teaser video and a few screenshots of Return to Monkey Island were released, the art style drew criticism from fans online.

[50][51][52][53][54][a] Several developers publicly criticized the user behavior and supported Gilbert and his team, including Cory Barlog of Santa Monica Studio and Neil Druckmann of Naughty Dog.

[77] Rock, Paper, Shotgun described the visuals as "vibrant and lovely, capturing the spirit of the earlier games but in a storybook style that is extremely fitting for this new adventure".

[80] The drop of the nine-verb interaction grid, and instead going with the drag-and-drop system limits some opportunities for comedy, but contributes to a seamless gameplay experience.

[81] GameSensor noted that the initial month after the launch of the game on Steam saw Return to Monkey Island achieve sales figures of approximately $3 million.