Return to Monkey Island will have its own take on an easy mode
To err is human, but to arr is pirate.
Ron Gilbert's upcoming Return to Monkey Island will have an easy mode, at least of sorts.
Chatting to Ars Technica, the creator revealed a hint system will be included in the upcoming release. "[One thing] that people really want in games today are built-in hint systems," Gilbert explained, retconning his previous desires to shun any such mechanic.
"If [players] don't have a built-in hint system, they're just going to jump over to the web and... read a walkthrough"
Gilbert continued, "[There was] a lot of stuff that we did [during the production of The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island: LeChuck's Revenge] and didn't think much about—a lot of very obscure puzzles.
"Hiding a piece of information somewhere with no clues about where to find it—that kind of thing just wouldn't fly today... Having hint systems means that if you make the puzzle just completely weird and obscure, people just go to the hint system."
However, Gilbert and his collaborator Dave Grossman will be ensuring that the inclusion of this new hint system will not detract from the gameplay. Rather, it will make sense "in the fantasy" of the game and provide users with "more than just a walkthrough."
There will also be a casual mode for Return to Moneky Island, like there was in LeChuck's Revenge.
This will be for "people [for whom] this is their first adventure game, or they haven't played adventure games in a long time, or maybe they have lives and kids now," Gilbert said. "They can play the casual mode, which is just a lot of simplification of the puzzles. That is our main way to get people into playing a point-and-click game if they haven't done it before."
This is also in keeping with the spirit of The Curse of Monkey Island, which offered players the chance to either play through a more streamlined version of the game, or opt for its "Mega Monkey" mode. This mode added more puzzles to the gameplay.
Earlier this month, Gilbert and Grossman additionally revealed that Return to Monkey Island will be starting off where LeChuck's Revenge finished – at an amusement park. To accompany this news, the duo also shared some new screenshots of what fans can expect on the game's release later this year.