One of my favourite moments in Sea of Thieves’ new Monkey Island collaboration comes right near the start of the first episode; as you sail through the familiar pea green soup of the Sea of the Damned, approaching a distant, dimly lit island, a transformation occurs. Suddenly, the familiar Monkey Island theme begins to stir in a rumbling of steel drums, the fog parts in unison with a dramatic colour palette shift, and there it is, in a sheer blast of giddying nostalgia: the unmistakable moonlit heft of Mêlée Island, sprawled beneath searing purple skies.
It’s spine-tingling stuff, delivered with developer Rare’s typical cinematic panache, and it’s perhaps the perfect summation of a crossover that so elegantly transforms nostalgic reverence into an experience that feels both exciting and new. Rare’s pulled off something similar before, of course, in 2021’s beautifully observed Pirates of the Caribbean crossover, A Pirate’s Life – and it was here, amid the Jack Sparrows and Davy Joneses, that the seed for Sea of Thieves’ new three-episode Monkey Island Tall Tale adventure was initially sown.
Back then, after completing an optional side quest in A Pirate’s Life’s opening episode – appropriately structured to lend it a distinct point-and-click adventure vibe – players would encounter the shipwrecked remains of the Headless Monkey and the scattered journals of Monkey Island’s famed Captain Kate Capsize, all teasing a potential crossover that felt like such a perfect, immediate fit it would have been a crime if it hadn’t eventually appeared.
“There’s many ways you could have interpreted that Easter egg,” Sea of Thieves creative director Mike Chapman tells me during a recent chat. “I think that made it clear how much we’re huge fans at the studio of that loved world and IP. There’s so many parallels between the world of Monkey Island and the inspiration you see in Sea of Thieves, and I always kind of hoped when people saw that little Easter egg… that that was a little hint for where we could go in the future.”
Chapman tells me work on The Legend of Monkey Island, as Sea of Thieves’ latest collaboration is officially known, began in earnest after approval from Lucasfilm Games in the latter half of last year. Its story, though – in which hapless series protagonist Guybrush Threepwood finds himself stranded and suddenly revered as a legendary pirate in the Sea of the Damned, a sort of temporary purgatory for recently deceased pirates in Sea of Thieves – was actually an idea that began to formulate as far back as that first Pirates of the Caribbean Tall Tale.
“I’d say around that time [we were already thinking] beyond just an Easter egg,” Chapman explains, “beyond just a passing mention or a character here and there; how could you really create a love letter for that series and do it justice in a really immersive way in Sea of Thieves? And I think it’s unique to Monkey Island that it’s not just nostalgia for the characters, it’s nostalgia for the locations. But then what locations? If you had to choose a limited set on which to base an original story, where would you go in the Monkey Island world? And I think initially, my mind went straight to Mêlée and Monkey Island.”
And now, several years later, with Sea of Thieves’ Monkey Island crossover finally a reality, it’s Rare’s take on Mêlée Island that’s arguably the real star of its wonderful first episode, lovingly recreated in exquisite detail and, for the first time, in fully explorable 3D. Within seconds of pulling into that familiar, rickety dock, the boy in me who’d grown up with Monkey Island was off – deaf to the spirited commotion spilling from the nearby Scumm Bar and racing upward, tearing through moon-dappled pines, slaloming an increasingly precarious cliffside path, all the way to the distant precipice of Lookout Point, and ohhh what a view: it’s a spectacular vista of treasured memories made real, as far, far below a familiar route winds unbroken from dock to Scumm Bar to High Street, all the way to the imposing Governor’s Mansion on the other side.
It’s a genuinely impressive creation, effortlessly filling in the blanks in a world only ever glimpsed in perfectly framed 2D fragments until now, and I couldn’t help wonder how it must have felt to expand such beloved, iconic snapshots into full 3D. “Obviously the challenge was daunting at first,” Chapman tells me, “but once we started to, in my opinion, nail it, the more it just felt completely magical. I remember the first time, probably a few iterations into our white boxing process, where I did that walk down from Lookout Point, down to where you see the election poster across the jetty, and into the Scumm Bar. And it just living up to what you thought that place would feel like in fully immersive first-person, and honestly my stomach went over like butterflies, just an electrifying moment… Creatively you can take so many liberties when you’re only working in 2D… but trying to make that work in 3D while also remaining authentic, we’ve put so much love and care into that.”
And that obvious love for Monkey Island is evident throughout the collaboration’s first episode; Rare’s Mêlée Island is infused with countless fan-pleasing (and hopefully fan-making) nods, from familiar landmarks and returning characters, right through to its voice cast, which includes the inimitable Dominic Armato as Guybrush Threepwood, alongside other actors reprising their roles, in some cases for the first time since the Monkey Island Special Editions over a decade ago. “It’s hard to really put into words as a fan,” Chapman says, “what it’s like to hear these actors that you’ve come to love, hearing their work over the years, saying lines that we’ve written for this collaboration. It’s unbelievable, so surreal.”
Original Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert hasn’t been involved in the making of The Legend of Monkey Island (although he was informed of the collaboration early on, despite initial suggestions otherwise), and Rare’s take on the series isn’t linked with Gilbert’s recent Return to Monkey Island, instead picking up immediately after the events of the oft-underappreciated Monkey Island 3.
As the story begins, newlyweds Guybrush Threepwood and Elaine Marley accept an invitation to the Sea of Thieves, only to become lost – with a certain cackling undead foe in tow – in the Sea of the Damned, where the memories, dreams, and nightmares of stranded souls have a tendency to manifest as real. The ensuing adventure – or, at least, the one episode I’ve played so far – is quite a departure for Sea of Thieves, even by the standards of its formula-tweaking Tall Tales. Whereas 2021’s Pirates of the Caribbean crossover felt like a perfect balance of mirror universes as Sea of Thieves characters rubbed shoulders with iconic creations from Disney’s blockbuster franchise, Rare’s latest crossover feels Monkey Island through and through.
“In contrast to what we’ve created in previous Tall Tales,” Chapman says, “I think Monkey Island is very much more about immersing yourself truly in that pirate fantasy. So it’s that sense of place, of these lived-in pirate locations, full of these colourful, interesting, whimsical characters. And that core gameplay is very much around inhabiting that space, of interacting and touching these various elements, combining them, encountering these layered puzzles that aren’t immediately on the surface.”
Indeed, structurally, The Legend of Monkey Island’s first episode is pure point-and-click adventure, albeit streamlined and reconfigured to function within the boundaries of a first-person action game. You’ll chat with Mêlée Island’s dubious denizens, eking out clues; you’ll locate items with their own sometimes esoteric uses, mentally plotting out puzzle sequences – how to buy the outfit to infiltrate the kitchen to grab the beer to satisfy the Scumm Bar’s rowdy clientele – like that wild-eyed Charlie Day meme.
Initially, such a classically solo style of play feels like an odd fit in a scenario designed for multiple crewmates, and, after playing a bit on my own, I was dubious that a party of players conga-ing between puzzles and waiting out the adventure’s considerable dialogue (which certainly captures the enthusiastic spirit of the series, even if it never quite reaches the same comedic highs) would be anything like fun. After starting from scratch with Eurogamer’s resident Monkey Island fanatic Victoria Kennedy in tow, though, it all makes a lot more sense.
While The Legend of Monkey Island’s slower, more methodical pace is certainly a great fit for solo players – which isn’t always the case in Sea of Thieves – it does, as Chapman puts it, “come to life in a different way when you play it with a crew”. There’s a wonderful vein of collaborative puzzling here with just a whiff of Room Escape about it; crew members are free to split up, conversing and exploring separately in their hunt for clues, before returning to pool their knowledge and figure out a way to proceed. One daft puzzle had me stumped for ages solo as I struggled futilely to shift a particularly stubborn crate, but then along came Victoria, sword in hand and a brain in head, and, a few slashes later, its restraining rope was no more.
Of course, there’s no telling exactly where The Legend of Monkey Island will go next in its remaining two monthly episodes – although Chapman teases Mêlée Island’s impassable fog will eventually lift, opening up more familiar locales, some of which can already be spotted from up high – but this first episode is a delight; charming, richly immersive, and effortlessly capturing the magic of the original without ever feeling limited by the past. It brings a very different vibe to Sea of Thieves compared to its usual high-spirited high seas adventure – taking place, as it does, far, far away from the oft-nefarious interference of other crews – but it’s an easy, if unusual, recommend, perhaps even for those who’ve previously balked at Rare’s pirate game.
And as my chat with Mike Chapman draws to a close, I can’t help but ask which Disney collaboration he might want to tackle next if he was given a choice between its two most obvious remaining pirate properties: Peter Pan and Treasure Planet. Alas for far-flung-future Jim Hawkins fans, it’s a vote for the boy who wouldn’t grow up. So no Sea of Thieves in space?, I ask hopefully. “I don’t think so,” Chapman laughs, “I think that’s where we draw the line.”
The Legend of Monkey Island is a permanent addition to Sea of Thieves and the first of its three monthly episodes launches today, 20th July, as a free update.
