The Monkey Island games are no stranger to the mobile platform, with the Special Edition versions of both The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge as well as the episodic Tales of Monkey Island series from Telltale Games all arriving on mobile in the earlier years of the App Store’s existence. Sadly the first two games are no longer available, and the Telltale series also met an untimely fate when the storied developer folded in 2018, though it resurfaced shortly after under new ownership and the entire Tales of Monkey Island series was restored to the App Store in 2021.

However, it’s those first two Monkey Island games that are key to this story, as those were the only two entries that series creator Ron Gilbert worked on before leaving LucasArts in the early ’90s. There were two further Monkey Island games to close out the millennium that Gilbert did not have a hand in, but he did help contribute to the Telltale series that released in 2009. However, over the years Gilbert has mentioned being interested in doing another Monkey Island game, one where he and his team would have full creative control over its story and gameplay.

That opportunity presented itself in 2019 and work on this new game, titled Return to Monkey Island, began in secret for the next few years culminating in a console and PC release in the fall of last year. But, with adventure games being such a wonderful fit for the touchscreen, I definitely felt left out of the party with no announcement of a mobile version. That changed today with publisher Devolver Digital announcing that Return to Monkey Island would finally be heading to iOS and Android platforms later this month.

This new mobile version will be launching on July 27th and is available for pre-order on the iOS App Store or pre-registration for Android on the Google Play Store right now. It will set you back about ten bucks, or about two and a half doubloons. The game was quite well received on PC and console when it released last year, with praise specifically for its humor and it ability to capture the magic of and deliver fan service from the original two games. I was a big LucasArts and Sierra On-Line adventure game fan as a kid, and since I haven’t had the chance to dive into Return to Monkey Island on other platforms yet I’m extremely excited to check it out on mobile later this month.