The rights to Monkey Island remained with LucasArts, and the third and fourth games were created without direct involvement from the original writing staff.
Ron Gilbert's two main inspirations for the story were Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean ride and Tim Powers' book On Stranger Tides.
Gilbert said in an interview that "[the POTC Ride] keeps you moving through the adventure but I've always wished I could get off and wander around, learn more about the characters, and find a way onto those pirate ships.
So with The Secret of Monkey Island I wanted to create a game that had the same flavor, but where you could step off the boat and enter that whole storybook world".
[2] The series debuted in 1990 with The Secret of Monkey Island on the Amiga, MS-DOS, Atari ST and Macintosh platforms; the game was later ported to FM Towns and Mega-CD (1993).
A remake version with updated graphics and new voiceovers was released for PlayStation Network, PC Windows, Xbox Live Arcade[3] and OS X.
The second game, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge from 1991, was available for fewer platforms; it was only released for PC MS-DOS, Amiga, Macintosh, and later for FM Towns.
Guybrush investigates and unearths a conspiracy by LeChuck and evil real estate developer Ozzie Mandrill to use a voodoo talisman, "The Ultimate Insult", to make all pirates docile in order to turn the Caribbean into a center of tourism.
Tales of Monkey Island is the fifth installment within the series, co-developed by Telltale Games and LucasArts, with a simultaneous release both on WiiWare and PC.
The Voodoo Lady sends Guybrush in search of a legendary sea sponge to stem the epidemic, but this seemingly straightforward quest has surprises around every corner.
In addition to Gilbert, Grossman returns as co-writer, with music from veteran series composers Michael Land, Peter McConnell, and Clint Bajakian, and Dominic Armato, Alexandra Boyd, and Denny Delk reprising their roles as Guybrush, Elaine, and Murray.
In Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, Guybrush can be accessed as a playable character via a cheat code; in addition, a Monkey Island-themed secret room can be found in the game's final level.
[15] Several elements from the Monkey Island series appear in Sea of Thieves as part of its June 2021 "A Pirate's Life" update.
[17][18] In an update to Hitman 3, a new pirate-themed map was added, which featured an Easter Egg referencing Monkey Island in the form of a gravestone in the environment reading "G Threepwood, Mighty Pirate", a clear reference to Guybrush.
Lucasfilm's Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), in the midst of transitioning from practical to digital effects, offered its services for producing these films to other studios.
[21] David Carson, who had been set to direct Frankenstein and the Wolfman but left after the Universal shake-up, came back to ILM with the idea of an animated film based on the first Monkey Island game around 2000.
[21][22] It had been rumored that Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio had been involved in the writing of the Monkey Island script which they subsequently used as the basis for the first Pirates of the Caribbean film.
The game's conclusion reveals the secret to be a novelty T-shirt earned as a prize at a pirate-themed amusement park, which has acted as the setting for all of Guybrush Threepwood’s previous adventures.
After the release of Return to Monkey Island, Gilbert stated in an interview that the true secret (as conceived during development of the first installment of the series) is that Guybrush was, in fact, inside of a pirate-themed amusement park the entire time.