Monkey Island remake next week

By Tom Bramwell Published 7 July, 2009

10 classic Lucas games on Steam tomorrow.

LucasArts has announced that The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition will be released on Xbox Live Arcade and PC next Wednesday, 15th July.

What's more, that announcement mooted yesterday is that 10 of the publisher's games will be released on Steam tomorrow, 8th July.

Those 10 are Armed and Dangerous, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure, LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures, Loom, Star Wars Battlefront II, Star Wars Republic Commando, Star Wars Starfighter, The Dig and Thrillville: Off the Rails.

More classic Steam releases will follow, and as you've probably guessed, The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition will be distributed by Steam next week - although it will also be made available through other distributors as well.

In the meantime, of course, today should mark the release of Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 1: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal from Telltale Games. Check out our recent interview with Dave Grossman for more on that, and look out for a review soon.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (38) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • mkreku #1 3 years ago

    Most anticlimactic reveal ever. I was expecting a sequel to some popular franchise!

    And why no Outlaws in that list?

  • rashes #2 3 years ago

    I'm guessing a 1200 MS points price tag?

  • bad09 #3 3 years ago

    @ rashes

    It's a VERY popular game so 1200 is a dead cert! Still a tenner for Monkey Island is worth it.

    As for LA's "awesome" reveal, someone needs the sack. Should of just told the games were going on Steam. All they did with that Twitter nonsense was get people's hopes up then disappoint them.

  • asphaltcowboy #4 3 years ago

    Fate of Atlantis! Woo! :D

  • incognito_gbg #5 3 years ago

    Great news, and I donīt understand the problem with the twitter-reveal. They said three things:

    1. Its great news for old school fans.
    2. Its not about any new IP.
    3. Its not about a specific old IP.

    And about "why isnīt title X in the list?": This is just the first round. They are adapting all titles so that they will work without problem on modern computers, and it would make no to release all at once, since the sales would be lower.
    Edited by 1 at 07/07/09 @ 08:57

  • leftlion #6 3 years ago

    Yay for Loom! :)
    Been many years since I played that and would love to play it again but i've never used steam before so I guess now's my chance.

  • spliffhead #7 3 years ago

    Damnit, I need a boxed version of these babies!

    How else will I be able to play them in the future when global warming swamps the world and I can't get a wifi signal on my 360 from the bond villan space station I'm building?

  • Doctor_What #8 3 years ago

    PSN release please! (I've got no space left on the crummy little 360's HD!)

  • mkreku #9 3 years ago

    @incogniteo_gbg: So you're saying that making me wait for the titles I actually want to buy is somehow increasing their sales..? Ookk..

  • Headache #10 3 years ago

    I'm interested in The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, but only at the right price. Much as I love LucasArts old games, I've bought and played them before, unless they do something similar to this new release of Monkey Island and update those parts of their games that have aged badly I won't be buying any of these games again.

  • Toothball #11 3 years ago

    I never played it first time round, so I'll make sure to pick this up.

  • kangarootoo #12 3 years ago

    @mkreku

    "So you're saying that making me wait for the titles I actually want to buy is somehow increasing their sales..?"

    I think what incognito_gbg is saying is that people only have so much money to spend, and if you release loads of titles all at once people will only buy a handful and then have forgotten about the rest by the time they have saved up again.

    I suppose in a nutshell, the answer to your question is yes. They may lose your single individual sale, but overall I suspect they are probably focussing on a slightly wider audience.

  • InsoFox #13 3 years ago

    For people not in the know this IS actually a big deal, if only for the fact that along with all the new Monkey Island it shows a marked change in policy for Lucasarts whose stance for years seems to have been to simply ignore these great old franchises - it's great news.

    Also, this is just the FIRST batch as was pointed out above. There are more to come, so why are people already moaning 'why no [insert favourite game here]?'

    Also, the price of Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition is announced as 800 points, not 1200, as far as I am aware.
    Edited by 1 at 07/07/09 @ 09:44

  • TheTingler #14 3 years ago

    You people complaining are morons. They very clearly said (as incognito_gbg pointed out) that it was good news for old-school fans, not new IP, and not any specific IP. For feck's sake, it's TWITTER, it's hardly Konami having a huge countdown to another huge countdown!

    People have been begging for these games to be re-released for years. And now not only are LucasArts providing at last, they're making them fully compatible with modern systems. That is brilliant.

    So you own the games? Good for you. Many don't. I was missing out on Loom for a long time, and I don't properly have Indy Last Crusade. These games haven't aged a day, their gameplay is just as great now.

    And this is only the start. Hopefully Outlaws, Indy Infernal Machine, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, X-Wing and all the other games us old-school gamers bang on about will appear in the next release... which IS coming.

    Of course, yes, I'd like to see price first... but if it's under a tenner for any one it'd be worth it.

  • kangarootoo #15 3 years ago

    Anyway, there is no bad news here.

    Monkey Island remake on XBLA! \o/

  • grussbarbar #16 3 years ago

    I absolutely loved Loom. ^_^

    I hope they're considering releasing the point 'n click adventures on WiiWare too. Playing Sam & Max Season 1 around the TV with my friends was great fun.

  • homerramone #17 3 years ago

    Pah.. Is that it !?
    I want grim godammit.
    Furthermore I chewed my left foot off in anticipation damn you !!!!

  • WinterSnowblind #18 3 years ago

    @incognito_gbg

    Great summary. The amount of people ignoring all the information, because they were hoping for a new Battlefront or whatever, is ridiculous. As soon as they said it wouldn't be a sequel or connected to any one previous franchise, it was very obviously going to be a re-release of their old games.

    Personally, I think this is awesome news. Pretty much ALL of Lucas Arts old games were gold, but are now very rare and impossible to play legally.

  • bioreit #19 3 years ago

    @ Headache

    Can't remember exactly where I saw it, but there was a pretty good video - just remembered, it's on Live - showing how although the original version is still in there, they've updated the visuals with a new art direction (which actually looks pretty damn good) and even re-recorded all the voice work with the original actors, as well as reworking all the music scores from the originals.

    That's pretty much the definitive 'Improve and update, without messing things up' approach, to me anyways...

  • systems #20 3 years ago

    Better than nothing I suppose, but not as exciting as they were making out. Obviously they'll re-release the good games later (DoTT, Dark Forces, Full Throttle, X Wing etc.)

  • Darren #21 3 years ago

    Awesome news... can't wait til next week now. :)

    I was going to buy Secret of Monkey Island SE for the Xbox 360 but the performance issues and clunky controls of both Wallace & Gromit and Sam & Max make me think that the PC version might be the wiser option. I have a week to decide...

  • Headache #22 3 years ago

    @bioreit

    Yeah, sorry I didn't get that across in my comment. I knew LucasArts have done that for Monkey Island but I guess what I was trying to say is that I'm only interested in paying for Indy, Day of the Tent and Grim if they're given the same treatment that Monkey Island has recieved.

  • wellzy4eva #23 3 years ago

    I hope this Monkey Island remake is successful, because I want Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge to be remade, I never completed that game, but the story is supposed to be excellent.

    And yes I think both are worth 1200 points, at least they are longer than Braid.
    Edited by 1 at 07/07/09 @ 10:45

  • Darren #24 3 years ago

    Ooooo... almost missed the announcement that Tales of Monkey Island is out today on the PC. I'll be having some of that, ta! :D

  • Darren #25 3 years ago

    @wellzy4eva - "I hope this Monkey Island remake is successful, because I want Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge to be remade, I never completed that game, but the story is supposed to be excellent.

    And yes I think both are worth 1200 points, at least they are longer than Braid."

    ... and better and funnier! ;)

    Sorry but I just never understood exactly what was supposed to be so great about Braid. It was fine for what it was but it utterly failed to grab me in any way. Absolutely hated the art style too. The characters looked as if they were from a different game altogether.

  • JonFE #26 3 years ago

    "I was going to buy Secret of Monkey Island SE for the Xbox 360 but the performance issues and clunky controls of both Wallace & Gromit and Sam & Max make me think that the PC version might be the wiser option. I have a week to decide..."

    @Darren:
    Correct me if I'm wrong but both Wallace & Gromit and Sam & Max are not developed by the same chaps as Secret of Monkey Island SE, are they? How do you predict the performance of one game based on the performance of other games developed by other developers?

  • Darren #27 3 years ago

    @JonFE - It was just something I was bearing in mind that's all. I never stated it as a fact! :p

    Fortunately I'll be able to try the 360 demo for free first (likely will be able to on the PC also) so I can make my decision after that. Even so, these games are probably better suited to the mouse really because it was the fiddly controller more than the performance issues which marred the 360 versions of Wallace & Gromit and Sam & Max IMO.

  • r4z0rbl4d3 #28 3 years ago

    1200 points is nothing, I'd happily pay more for this amazing classic! To have it remade for HD-resolution, voiced by the 'original cast' and orchestrated music is well enough to re-release the game with ANY price! I'll probaly buy it on both PC and 360, just to get them remaking the rest of the titles!

  • Darren #29 3 years ago

    If this game had just been a simple port of the original then I'd have scoffed at the asking price. But a remake that contains both the original and the redux version with full voice-acting is definitely worth it because it's a great game and a very funny one too.

    Sadly these days we see very few point 'n' click adventures, which were a favourite genre of mine up until I moved from the Amiga to the consoles in the mid-90s because that's when they pretty much died out. It's great that we're seeing them revived as downloadable games for XBLA, etc. More please.

  • JonFE #30 3 years ago

    @Darren:
    Fair enough :)

  • konnsky #31 3 years ago

    I'm not quite liking this remake, the way they've redrawn few things doesn't really have that feeling of the original.

  • SlackMaster #32 3 years ago

    Can't wait for Monkey Island. Here's hoping it's 800msp and not 1600.

  • Kikizosan #33 3 years ago

    As great as the game is, and as interesting as the HD remake makes it, it is still a very old game. 800 points would be more like it, particularly considering how many people are (probably) going to get it.

  • WinterSnowblind #34 3 years ago

    @konnsky
    I actually agree, I'm not too fond of the new style in the remake, I would have prefered they done something closer to MI3. I don't think it's that bad though, and there's still the option to play it with the classic graphics, if it does bother you that much :)

    As for the price.. considering they have completely redone the graphics, music and added in voice work, 800 points is wishful thinking.
    Edited by 1 at 07/07/09 @ 12:46

  • siro #35 3 years ago

    Only thing I really despise about this is that ridiculous hairdo of Guybrush. That puts me off. A lot. (Else it's awesometastic)

    I think I'll eventually get this, but my last playthrough of Secret of Monkey Island is still too fresh in memory.

  • outy #36 3 years ago

    i've waited years for the opportunity to play The Dig!

  • Gastrian #37 3 years ago

    I'm just waiting for a graphical update of X-Wing vs TIE Fighter. Yep just a graphical update, they better not touch the gameplay god damnit....might even persuade me to buy a flightstick for my PC.

  • homerbert #38 3 years ago

    As much as I'd kill for a remastered TIE Fighter, it can't translate to consoles. The dozens of keys are integral to the game. Without the extra sales there, X-Wing Vs TIE Fighter Special-er Edition doesn't make economic sense.