30 June 2008
Ferry

Monkey Island 5, will it ever happen after all the LucasArts firings?

At E3 in May 2002, LucasArts public relations manager Tom Sarris stated that “they are definitely going to make Monkey Island 5 since it is their most popular franchise. However, we shouldn’t expect it in the near future.” At the same show ex-LEC president Simon Jeffrey had this to say about a possible Monkey Island 5: “At some point in the future, there will undoubtedly be more Monkey Island games. No doubt about that.”

Later that year PC Gamer magazine asked Tom Sarris again if there are any other popular franchises that LucasArts will re-visit? To which he answered: “There’ll definitely be another Monkey Island game. You’ve seen four incredibly well-done versions of Monkey Island, and there’s an immense amount of stories that remain to be told within that series.” This lead to claims by the magazine that “The Spy’s LucasArts informers let the monkey out of the bag: there is, apparently, a fifth Monkey Island game in production. The adventure genre continues to cheat death,” cites Scummbar. Another Monkey Island fansite mentions an issue of CVG magazine, where Mr. Sarris explained the sequel possibilities in more detail. To quote him: “I’d say that they’re extremely viable properties for us to tap into in the future, in the same way that we’re doing with Sam & Max. There’s no reason why we can’t adapt those to another generation of games players. I think there are stories that still remain to be told within Monkey Island and Grim Fandango.”

In 2006, LucasArts director Jim Ward jokingly added that he will make the fifth game in 2015, according to an archived Wikipedia quote. That’s the last time anyone at LucasArts ever publicly spoke about the game.

But what will happen to the series now that LucasArts fired 100 out of its 350 employees in early June 2008? It’s said it was the team that just finished Lego Indiana Jones. Later in June the company fired more of its internal developers who were work on finishing up Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. What’s even worse about this is that these key developers include several long-time members who worked on classic LucasArts titles like Star Wars: X-Wing (1993), Full Throttle (1995), and Grim Fandango (1998) according to a Joystiq source.

Unless an external studio is hired to work on Monkey Island 5, it looks like the game will not be created.

30 June 2008 07:29
Reeteshinator

I dont know if the original People who worked on the game are still in Lucas arts, they have most probably gone separate ways… but I think if telltale games is given the duty by Lucas arts (like Travellers tales for Lego games) It would be awesome. But better not look like the present Sam and Max games.. they suit only S&M well, I wouldn’t want Guybrush threepwood looking like that

If it Ever comes it would be one of the best things in years for me! I still lend my copy of MI games to friends to show them how cool those games were.

30 June 2008 07:44
supadupagama

Yeah that’s so true, and with any luck those experienced adventure developers will join Telltale Games, The world could use some more point-and-click games on PC, Wii and DS.

30 June 2008 16:13
Scumbag

Bring it on i still play thought the first 3 MI games almost every year. But don’t make it like the terrible 4th one.
Or just get Ron Gilbert back in and make a proper third one tell us the damm secret!

30 June 2008 21:11
Daniel Primed

There probably will be no more games in the series. We all know that the modern day Lucasarts are a bunch of *ssholes. Simply put.

Theoretically speaking though the series would work well on Steam, PSN, XBLA as episodic content reverting back to the previous illustrated feel of Curse of Monkey Island.

15 July 2008 17:28
Alex Frielings

Could someone please explain then why lucus arts refuses to sell the name if they think its a moneyless go no where franchise
this makes no sence to me at all ,,,
If they think it does have potential then why wait and sit on it so long that the original fans of the game are gonna start to die off for god sakes

15 July 2008 17:30
Alex Frielings

PS i also play those old games now and again and have also showed those games to a new generation of gamer and they all have loved them and also still play them now and again so WHAT GIVES

22 July 2008 03:52
djkenod

There are so many fan sites out there, i’m sure theres a market, i wish they would sell the rights if they arent going to do anything with it. I really miss this series like a lot of people out there.

27 July 2008 03:38
eyerock

If there is another MI, I hope Gilbert and schafer come back to work on it

12 February 2009 08:59
james

Monkey Islands were perfect, and i want another one like everyone else i know. And i want another jedi knight. The new lucas arts games arent too good. We want the good stuff back mannn.

14 March 2009 19:18
Budi

Oh dear LucasArts, how tragic. Like Lucas, like what had happened to Sierra, excluded Quest for Glory V which still satisfied its fan’s curiosity about last sequel. I admit I want to know how they end the last part of MI from Lucas.

“That’s the biggest tower I’d ever seen”