Video Game / Return to Monkey Island

"Pirating is in my blood, like adrenaline or stale grog. I've been in enough scraps to fill a dozen scrapbooks. I've got stories about ships, fights, love, treasure, betrayal, and root beer. But how about one that has all of the above? My name is Guybrush Threepwood, and this is a story about the time I finally found the Secret of Monkey Island."

— Gameplay reveal trailer

Return to Monkey Island is the sixth game in the Monkey Island saga, announced on April 1st, 2022 by series creator Ron Gilbert, marking his return to the helm three decades after his last game at LucasArts.

Many years after his last battle with the zombie pirate LeChuck, Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate™, is in a bit of a slump: his true love, Elaine Marley, has been focused on running an organization to combat scurvy cases in pirates, and the fact that he never found out what the Secret of Monkey Island really was has been eating away at him for some time now. However, he's broken out of it when rumors start floating that LeChuck has found the Secret's location and is going after it! Not wanting to get beaten to the punch and looking to relive the glory days, Guybrush sets off for Mêlée Island to get his own expedition going — but things have changed a lot in his years-long absence. Hip, young pirates led by Captain Madison have taken over as pirate leaders, Mêlée Island, now under the governorship of former Sword Master Carla, has taken a turn for the dire due to the government owing Madison immense amounts of interest, Black Magic has overtaken voodoo as the mystic art of choice, causing the Voodoo Lady's business to suffer, and Stan, everyone's favorite businessman, has been arrested for vague "marketing-related crimes". Guybrush must now navigate a world both familiar and not in an effort to definitively answer the question that's hung over the whole series since its inception: What IS the Secret of Monkey Island, anyway?

The game is co-developed with series co-creator Dave Grossman through Gilbert’s studio Terrible Toybox, and published by Devolver Digital in conjunction with Lucasfilm Games. While technically a sequel to 2009's Tales of Monkey Island, Return instead primarily picks up the reins from where Gilbert's last entry in the series, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, left off, while still maintaining some continuity with the sequels that came after it. The game was released on September 19, 2022 for PC and Nintendo Switch.

Trailers: Announcement, Gameplay Reveal, Title Screen for Part I, In-Game Videos.

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This game provides examples of:

• Aborted Arc: Despite technically being a sequel to Tales of Monkey Island, it doesn't follow up on that game's implications at the end that the Voodoo Lady was Evil All Along and the mastermind behind LeChuck.
• Actually Pretty Funny: LeChuck's ship is named "LeShip". Guybrush begrudgingly admits that it is actually kind of clever.
• All in the Manual: While Guybrush's son is never mentioned by name by any character, we see on the script and credits that his name is Boybrush.
• Ambiguous Situation: Since Guybrush is telling the story to his son who likes "silly endings," or "weird endings," it's left up to the player exactly how much of the ending is fictional. The presence of both his son and Elaine does hint at part of it being real, though even that might be in doubt, especially since there are both Multiple Endings and multiple Stingers depending on your choices at the end of the game, obfuscating the truth even further.
  • This also applies to the rest of the series, much less Return itself. Was Guybrush really just an over-imaginative theme park visitor (and/or flooring inspector)? Is the world of Monkey Island actually real? Or does the truth lie somewhere in-between? Both endings, the various epilogue scenes, and other context clues all imply one of these is true to varying extents, but none of the endings and epilogues can be truly considered "definitive". Perhaps, as Guybrush tells his son in one of the possible dialogue choices at the end of the game:
    Guybrush: There isn't any one answer to what the Secret is. It's not like a rock or a banana, it's like a story. It changes with time and the person telling it. Everyone you ask will have a different idea.
• And the Adventure Continues: As Guybrush finishes telling his story to his son, Elaine tells him she found the map to the treasure of Mire Island. Guybrush resolves to go with her find it.
• Ante Piece: When trying to dive to the bottom of the seafloor, Guybrush halts at the halfway mark saying he can't climb further because he'd need to climb back up to breathe. There is a blowfish nearby that inflates itself and exhales. There is a good chance the player has seen a blowfish earlier in the chapter and there's someone interacting with it showcasing exactly what needs to be done.
• Anti-Climax:
  • Repeatedly, in regards to many long term mystery of the franchise, with Guybrush remarking how such reveals are disappointing.
  • Chuckie's Aside Glance complete with ominous lighting and Red Eyes, Take Warning in Revenge was just him playing pretend and not actually real.
  • After Guybrush points out he has never actually learned the name of the Voodoo Lady, and calling her such just seems to be a Running Gag between the two of them, and asks when she will finally get around to tell him what it is, she immediately answers nonchalantly and upfront that it is Corina.
  • The Secret of Monkey Island turns out to be an ironic novelty t-shirt. Even the final puzzle to get it is incredibly easy, with the key being next to the treasure chest and barely hidden.
• Babies Ever After: Turns out that the young Guybrush we saw at the end Monkey Island 2 was actually Boybrush, Guybrush's son with Elaine.
• Bait-and-Switch: The first playable section seems to continue from the ending of Monkey Island II with young Guybrush, called Boybrush, and "Chuckie" in an amusement park. But after a few puzzles and some exploration, they eventually run into adult Guybrush, making it clear Boybrush is his son.
• Beige Prose: How Guybrush's fish story starts out. It gets better.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Besides LeChuck, the new Pirate Leaders led by Captain Madison end up as new characters opposing Guybrush and seeking the Secrets for themselves. While they do team up later on, they end up taking each other out due to their obsession with the Secret.
• Big, Thin, Short Trio: The New Pirate Leaders, with Captain Madison being the tall and thin leader, Trent being the stout and more hands-on one, and the short Lila being their magician.
• Blah, Blah, Blah: Various characters start saying "blah blah blah" when ranting, making it clear that what they're saying is unimportant and that whatever they're blathering about has their full attention, which the player can abuse. Examples include LeChuck's daily yelling session and Boybrush's fake parents.
• Blamed for Being Railroaded: Elaine calls Guybrush out on a dozen bad things he did during the game, but there is only one way to solve the puzzles apart from minor, inconsequential details.
• Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: The demon pepper, which is apparently a cocktail of every ultra-hot pepper known to man. It's out of stock for most of the early game, and you much later need some to cheat in an Eating Contest. Then there's the Scorched Alaska, which is a dessert from literal Hell with a recipe that involves meringue, dandruff, and actual red-hot embers.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Lampshaded by LeChuck
  LeChuck: GUYBRUSH! I SHOULD'VE KILLED YOU THE 58 TIMES I HAD THE CHANCE!
• Bookends: On a downright meta-level. The final puzzle of the game is the very first puzzle you had to do in the original version of The Secret Of Monkey Island: the code wheel to get around the disc protection.
• Brick Joke:
  • Early in the game Guybrush gets a map to a mop tree on Mêlée (it's exactly what it sounds like) which he destroys (the tree, not the map). Later in the game you can swap it for LeChuck's map of the secret of Monkey Island. Cue a later cutscene where LeChuck has been using the map... and somehow wound up finding an identical Mop tree on Monkey Island.
  • One that comes all the way back from Secret. When Trent pushes Guybrush off the plateau on Monkey Island, he crash lands on a stump. It is heavily implied that said stump is all that is left of the rubber tree that would bounce him back onto the plateau if the player had him walk too close to the edge back then.
  • Incredibly enough, the Secret of Monkey Island turns out to be one: a novelty t-shirt, exactly what you got for completing the Trials of Swordmastery and Treasure Hunter-y in Secret of Monkey Island. Also counts as Rule of Three.
  • One of the very last lines of the game references one of the very first lines of the first game. In Secret, the lookout on Mêlée expresses incredulity that Guybrush wants to be a pirate, saying he looks more like a flooring inspector. In the final amusement park scene in Return, Guybrush remarks that it's probably time to leave the park and go back to his life as a flooring inspector. This profession also gets referenced in Curse with Guybrush claiming to be one to fend off the advances of a ghost attracted to pirates.
• Broad Strokes: While the events of Escape from Monkey Island are mentioned in the scrapbook and in some of the dialogue, some details have been ignored. Escape had revealed that Herman Toothrot was actually Elaine's grandfather, H.T. Marley, but none of the characters acknowledge this in Return.
  • The giant monkey head on Monkey Island was apparently destroyed when the giant monkey robot underneath it was released, but here it appears the same way it did in the first game.
  • Neither LeChuck or Guybrush try to rhyme their insults, despite them being on a ship and it being established in Curse that comebacks are required to rhyme with their matching insults whilst at sea. Though in the same scenes, LeChuck also breaks other established rules for this and attributes it to keeping up with newer trends.
  • The Framing Device puts everything regarding the Carnival of the Damned from Curse into question, since its mere existence was intended to provide an in-universe justification for Monkey Island 2's ending, which Return provides an entirely different explanation for. Given that Return heavily implies that each game is a story told by Guybrush to his son, who tends to wildly change story elements as he sees fit, it's entirely possible that the events of Curse (and possibly any or all of the other games up to this point) as we saw them were another of Boybrush's wild reinterpretations.
  • In Tales, there were hints of the Voodoo Lady being Evil All Along, as well as LeChuck having been thoroughly destroyed, with only his voodoo essence left. In this game, the Voodoo Lady is back in her role as enigmatic helper though she does hide the fact that she possesses the Secret, saying that she was sworn to secrecy, and LeChuck is back to his zombie form without explanation.
• The Bus Came Back: We see many long absent characters back on Mêlée Island, including:
  • Carla the Sword Master, now the new governor of the island.
  • Otis, last seen in Escape, and once more jailed.
  • Wally, now with a new set of monocles, also returns to his old job as cartographer, having been last seen tied-up along the roller-coaster at LeChuck's Carnival of the Damned in Curse.
  • The weepy Cook from the Scumm Bar returns, still doing his job. He owns the bar.
  • Surprisingly, Cobb is still at the SCUMM bar on Mêlée Island wearing a pin advertising Loom. He's now grown bitter about people asking about it (he can't take off the pin), and there's an achievement for browbeating him into giving the advertisement speech.
  • We find out that the original Pirate leaders, who have been replaced by Madison and her team, left piracy to open a fishing shop.
  • Bob the ghost pirate from Secret is back as part of LeChuck's crew (now on permanent yardarm hanger duty).
• Call-Back: The stuffed animal at the governor's mansion is a poodle. The dogs outside of the mansion in Secret of were Pirahña Poodles.
• Capital Letters Are Magic: Nobody knows what The Secret (of Monkey Island) is, but everyone has heard of it. When mentioned, the subtitles always capitalize it as "The Secret" (with a capital "The", even in the middle of a sentence).
• Central Theme: Fittingly for a game based around finding out the true Secret Of Monkey Island, the game's central theme is whether knowing is better than wanting and if the pursuit of a goal is worth what you have to step over to get there.
  • As the story goes on, Guybrush is willing to resort to more and more extreme methods and the destruction his antics cause isn't glossed over for once. What lesson Guybrush takes from all this is up to player choice and interpretation of the Mind Screw ending.
  • The villains slowly destroy each other through in fighting and squabbles and are reduced to a literal carnival sideshow.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Widey Bones is first introduced as a senile old lady who rambles nonsense from her window. She turns out to be a lot more relevant than first appears, several chapters later.
• Continuity Nod: While it picks up after the ending of the second game, the game actually takes place a decade after Tales of Monkey Island, with many references to each game popping up, especially with the scrapbook on the menu screen giving a summary of the events of each game. In particular, you can mention the time Guybrush was eaten by a giant manatee in episode 3 of Tales.
  • Melee Island has changed quite a bit since ye olde Secret days. On the overworld map, if you run into a location where there used to be a landmark but isn't anymore (like the old circus site, or Meathook's now-inaccessible island due to a global shortage of rubber chickens with a pulley in the middle), Guybrush will throw a few comments about it.
  • LeChuck's crew is composed of ghosts, zombies, a human, and a fire-headed demon, referencing many of LeChuck's various forms throughout the saga (minus giant Living Statue or pirate god).
  • The inspirational pamphlet on LeChuck's ship is said to be condensed from the book "The LeChuck Way." In The Curse Of Monkey Island, Guybrush gets a leaflet on how to be a pirate called "Piracy, the LeChuck Way."
  • When Guybrush touches the thorns on Terror Island he yells "Pappapishu!" Which in Curse is explained to be a word used by the natives of Plunder Island meaning "Youch!"
  • When Guybrush meets Carla (the new governor of Melee Island), he can compliment her on how far she's come from the cushy government job he helped her get in Escape from Monkey Island.
  • Stan mentions his time as a lawyer, which comes from episode 4 of Tales.
  • Parts of the Fish Tales Guybrush can tell as part of the chum initiation reference being eaten by a Manatee and betrayed by Morgan LeFlay in episode 3 of Tales.
• Cool Key: The titular Secret is secured in a large case with five locks, with a corresponding set of five golden keys that Guybrush has to go and find.
• Cordon Bleugh Chef: Chef Putra — the "chef" part is important to her — is a zombie, so brains are one of her specialties, and the unwashed filth on the dishes are part of the flavor, even used as a marinade. She can whip up food that isn't rotten just as well, however, like a fluffy demonic meringue for a Scorched Alaska.
• Creator Cameo: In the ending, there's a plaque mentioning one R. Gilbert as the man who founded the amusement park, in 1989.
• Cruelty Is the Only Option: In the dark cave on Terror Island, there is no way to get the Golden Key from Herman without force. The more reasonable dialog options will never work, no matter how many times you try them. The only option that works is the forceful choice, which results in Guybrush assaulting Herman and destroying their only light source in the process. To make matters even worse, you can't take Herman with you when using the magic XYZZY sign to escape the cave.
• Cutting Off the Branches: While the game follows in the footsteps of Escape by confirming that Guybrush accidentally sinking the Sea Monkey canonically took place in the first game, it also seemingly confirms that Guybrush did in fact not destroy Bob with the voodoo root beer, which was another optional thing you could do in that game.
• Cutting the Knot: There are many possible solutions to the customs checklist puzzle, a maze of circular logic and entries which contradict or modify previous listings... or you can simply check the box at the very bottom and sign your name, indicating everything else is correct to your knowledge. Judge Plank checks the one other required checkbox for you (the one which says you are carrying limes, which you've already shown him) and lets you through.
• Developer's Foresight: If you give a character an item they want before they've asked for it, they will usually comment on it. For example, if you give the cookbook to the SCUMM Bar cook, he'll wonder aloud how you knew he needed it.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: LeChuck's classic leitmotif is composed in-universe by Flair, and even serves as part of the solution for a puzzle.
• Did You Die?: Similar to a gag in Monkey Island II, if you try to drown Guybrush by staying underwater for eight minutes, the game will cut back to him telling the story to his son, who calls him out on it. But if you try again two more times, the game will cut back to the now empty bench they were sitting on and tell you that Guybrush died for real, leaving behind his wife and no children, before returning to the main menu. And then you get an achievement.
• Disgusting Public Toilet: The Scurvy Dog shack's toilet is even less sanitary than the shack itself.
• Easily Forgiven: Elaine learns about all the problems Guybrush created in his quest for the Secret, from destroying an endangered keystone species to overthrowing an entire government. Despite all this, her What the Hell, Hero? moment is surprisingly muted, with her mainly using all Guybrush's crimes as evidence that continuing to seek the Secret may not be good for him.
  • A Justified Trope at this point in the series. After knowing Guybrush for six games, and being married to him for three, Elaine surely knows all about his tendency to cause massive catastrophes in order to remove minor inconveniences. If she hasn't divorced him by now, she must be at peace with it.
• Entertainingly Wrong: The Museum of Pirate Lore is filled to the brim with pirate artifacts... but where the curator claims them to be historical pieces from all over the Caribbean, Guybrush immediately recognizes them as leftovers from his own past shenanigans. He is really miffed that an exhibit that is for all intents and purposes dedicated to him doesn't mention his name a single time, and the curator won't listen to him because Guybrush's claims contradict the research done (by an unpaid intern) and "eyewitnesses often have faulty memory".
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: LeChuck is literally called an Equal opportunity employer, and his crew includes ghosts, zombies, a human, and a fire-headed demon.
• Feeling Their Age: Return takes place about a decade after Tales, and Guybrush notes he's getting older. As such, he can only hold his breath underwater for 8 minutes now, down from the 10 he'd been able to pull off ever since Secret.
• Foreshadowing: In the first act, one of the pirates at the SCUMM bar says the secret of Monkey Island will turn out to be a T-Shirt or something else mundane. She's right about it being a T-Shirt
• Framing Device: Guybrush is telling a story to his son at the Big Whoop amusement park, following directly from the ending of Monkey Island 2.
• Genre Throwback: Conceived as a classic adventure game while avoiding the Retraux style of Thimbleweed Park, using a new, modern one instead.
• Gotta Catch Them All: The game has one with the optional Trivia Card collection which Guybrush can complete over the course of the game. Of course, if you want all the achievements associated with them, you both have to collect the cards and give the correct answers to their questions, too. These cards carry over between playthroughs.
• Gross-Up Close-Up: There are a few of these throughout the game. Notably, the intro section does this several times to capture the essence of two boys playing unsupervised in a theme park.
• Guide Dang It!: Even though the game's puzzles all have their solutions in the ingame hint book, some of the game's secret achievements are super specific. Contender for the worst is Free Wally, where you have to get a lock's serial number for an optional puzzle in the final act in the second or third act. AND the lock you have to check does not show up as an item you can interact with when holding down the "Show all items" button (TAB on PC). There is nothing that indicates this is a possibility.
• Hates Everyone Equally: LeChuck advertises himself as an equal opportunity employer which translates to everybody getting keelhauled and disparaged.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Guybrush has flirted with this status from the moment he first ruined one of Stan's businesses, but this game pushes it into overdrive. In one act alone, he steals Herman's property and leaves him trapped in a cave, steals an irreplaceable poster from his own wife, threatens Stan with 10 years in a gulag, burgles priceless items from a small local museum, and 'topples an entire government because he needed a piece of its crown. Remember that every bit of this, and more, is all because Guybrush wants to relive his glory days. It's all Played for Laughs, of course.
  • Interestingly, each item on that list actually comes with context that softens the sociopathy. Guybrush couldn't actually have done anything for Herman because of how he arrived in the cave; he uses the poster for its intended purpose of raising awareness about how limes fight scurvy; Stan actually did commit all the malfeasance Guybrush accuses him of; the museum got everything wrong about its own exhibits; and the Queen of Brrr Muda, by her own admission, spent most of her time fending off challenges to her crown anyway. Of course, none of these things had anything to do with Guybrush's motivations, but they're still worth noting.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Locke Smith the locksmith. As she tells you herself, yes, her parents were also locksmiths, and yes, they really did name her that on purpose.
• I'll Take Two Beers Too: After getting two Scurvydogs, Boybrush asks Chuckie what he'll have. (He's joking, though.)
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Dee dodges Guybrush's story by saying she needs to walk her tarantula.
• Irony: Iron Rose is the most loyal member of LeChuck's crew, acting as his Dragon. She's also the only one to seemingly be Killed Offscreen by LeChuck
• Kick the Dog: Like most LucasArts characters, Guybrush has always performed morally dubious acts throughout the franchise, usually because Cruelty Is the Only Option, but as he grows more obsessed with the Treasure, for the first time one of these acts is not Played for Laughs. Specifically, he physically assaults Herman Toothrot, stealing his Golden Key and leaving him alone in a dark cave. Thankfully Elaine ends up rescuing him.
• Latin Is Magic: Dark magic involves a whole lot of Latin incantations. They're actually recitations of Lorem Ipsum.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Guybrush often refers to his past adventures by the names the fans use for the games.
  • Upon finding the wreck of the Sea Monkey, Guybrush will note it's "his ship from Monkey Island 1".
  • Guybrush notes that his son and Chuckie had been re-enacting "Monkey Island 2".
• Lethal Chef:
  • The Scumm Bar cook's kitchen is still littered with hunks of meat, conspicuous stains, and other, less identifiable things. He reacts in terror at the idea of the health inspector coming by, and keeps a forged inspection certificate on the wall, shored up with gold star stickers. The bubbling pot of soup on the stove smells just like Guybrush remembers from Secret, and might well be the same exact stew. He goes into a flurry of activity trying to make the nightmare customer every dish in the cookbook you find for him, but the Bar burns down before you get to find out how he did.
  • LeChuck's cook Putra is no slouch either, with Guybrush listing the whole kitchen as a sanitary violation, but given she's a zombie and there's only one (two with Guybrush) living person on board, she doesn't have to worry about killing people with what she cooks.
• Loophole Abuse: In typical Monkey Island fashion, Guybrush is able to make use of loopholes in his quest. In particular, because LeChuck never explicitly fired him after his cover as Swabbie was blown, Guybrush is able to get past the no-boarding enchantment on LeShip with ease as he's still technically crew.
• MacGuffin: One of the most famous MacGuffins of them all, the fabled Secret of Monkey Island, and Guybrush finally deciding to discover what it is, forms the impetus for the plot. In true MacGuffin manner, what the secret is doesn't even matter. Something Guybrush's son catches on, realizing his dad made up the ending. Guybrush is offered various choices to tell his son what the treasure really was: "A pile of gold jewels" (implied to be an answer he picks because that'd please his son), "The friends we made along the way" (trying to teach his son about the nature of storytelling), that Elaine was right about it not been worth knowing or "It's how it really happened". The final option however lampshades the trope: "there's no answer" (That ultimately it doesn't matter what the secret is because it's how each person reacts to it that matters).
• Make an Example of Them: Played for Laughs with Bob, where it's his job to be tied and hung from the yardarm to demonstrate what happens to those who fail LeChuck. Besides being very bored, he doesn't mind and actually gets offended when he suspects Guybrush asking to cover his shift is secretly a ploy to steal his job.
• Meme Acknowledgment: The shipwreck at Monkey Island has a crab scuttling about on its hull. Periodically it will do a crab dance, like the famous celebratory video.
• Mind Screwdriver: Played straight in the opening but played with later.
  • In the opening the end of Monkey Island 2 turns out to be be the result of Boybrush and his friend Chucky doing their own spin on whatever actually happened in that tale, with his father Guybrush telling him you can't just change endings like that.
  • Later on you get to choose how to interpret Guybrush's intentionally silly ending. Was that adventure really all a theme park ride? A metaphor for how disappointing the real secret was? Or was he making the mother of all dad jokes by copying his son's storytelling style to show him why stories need a satisfying ending?
• Multiple Endings: There are two potential main endings once you solve the final puzzle of the game:
  • The first has Guybrush realize he was in a theme park run by Stan all along, with Elaine waiting for him. After shutting down all the rides and optionally take the Secret for himself, he leaves for home. The story cuts back to the frame device, his son Boybrush incredulous and asking for confirmation of what really happened before Elaine returns and suggests them to go and watch the Galleons, while mentioning Guybrush she has found a new treasure map. Guybrush decides to stay a little longer on the bench and silently contemplates before cutting to the credits.
  • The second has Guybrush using Stan's key to open the doors he entered from and escape back to Monkey Island and, as written by the button prompt, "deny what he thinks he saw and return to the world he knows". The story cuts with no return to the Framing Device, directly to the credits.
• Mundane Made Awesome: The game gives lightsaber-smithing levels of reverence to the process of crafting a mop.
• Mythology Gag: On Terror Island, you can come across a long-abandoned camp, with the skeletons of the three pirates who set it up spread around the area. Guybrush is weirded out that he feels like he's seen them before, but can't figure out where. They're actually the three unnamed pirates from the cover of The Secret of Monkey Island, who are pretty notorious for never appearing in the game at all despite being depicted alongside Guybrush and Elaine.
• Never Found the Body: What happened to Captains Madison and Trent is never shown onscreen, and all we see of Madison is her is a Dead Hat Shot.
• Never Heard That One Before: Poor Bob's main job is being used as an example by LeChuck to show what happens to crew members that displease him, namely he has been made to hang upside down from the yardarm. One of the goodbyes Guybrush can say to him is "Hang in there, Bob."
  Bob: Still not funny.
• Ninja Run: Lila, being Asian coded with her robes and skin tone, does one going after LeChuck in the final chapter.
• No Ending: While the game certainly has an ending, if you finish the story with Boybrush, Elaine mentions finding a new treasure map, and Guybrush agrees to go looking for it with her. The camera then lingers on Guybrush, without sound, as he sits on the bench. After about a minute, it cuts and the credits roll.
• No, You Hang Up First: Guybrush and Elaine's first meeting can end with them repeatedly telling each other "you say goodbye first." If Guybrush says it enough times, Elaine will say goodbye first.
• Non-Standard Game Over: Letting the oxygen timer run out three times, the first two times Boybrush will ask you to tell the truth. The third time the screen pans to an empty bench and gives us an In Memoriam message about Guybrush dying and leaving Elaine behind, childless.
• Noodle Incident: Carla accuses Guybrush of losing a book she lent him. He doesn't remember the incident at all, so no details are forthcoming.
• Nostalgia Level: Acts 1 and 3, in that the former takes place on Mêlée Island and the latter takes place on Monkey Island, both of which allows Guybrush to revisit iconic locations from Secret.
• Oh, No... Not Again!: Guybrush's reaction when the hidden tunnel under Monkey Island leads him directly to the back-alley on Melee.
• Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: Guybrush is feeling his age catching up to him, and he must several times admit, much to his chagrin, that he might be a bit behind the times. Meanwhile, Captain Madison and her two flunkies, Trent and Lila, represent a younger, darker generation of pirates, and they turn out be on the hunt for The Secret themselves becoming the other half of the story's Big Bad Ensemble next to LeChuck.
• Overly Long Gag:
  • Dee's lecture on anchors in the prologue.
  • The Voodoo Lady giving Guybrush a long legal disclaimer before he can buy a knife from her.
• Ow, My Body Part!: When Trent pushes Guybrush from the plateau, he has a brutal landing on a stump^note implied to be the last remains of the same rubber tree that would bounce him back to the plateau in Secret. One of the possible dialogue choices, once the injured Guybrush regains the ability to speak in something that isn't incoherent gurgling and moaning in pain, is "I think I hurt my pancreas."
  Elaine: Do you even know where your pancreas is?
  Guybrush: I don't know... Judging from how I'm feeling: everywhere.
• Pandering to the Base: Invoked and lampshaded with the "Fan Service" achievement, which you get by finding Cobb in the SCUMM Bar and pestering him until he gives a repeat of his Loom spiel from the original game.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Flambe is never seen working and does little except sleep, eat, and read.
• Previously on…: A new feature that, when enabled, allows Guybrush to recap his adventures upon loading a saved game.
• Purple Prose:
  • "At the End of the Plank", the romantic novel that everyone and their mom is reading.
  • Guybrush's fish story becomes this as he improves it.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: The judge of Brr Muda, the freezing northern island, was sent there after beating his superior in a card game.
• Recycled Script: The main plot borrows a lot of beats from Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge and Escape from Monkey Island.
  • From MI2: The game is told as an in-universe story and involves Guybrush and LeChuck on the hunt for an mysterious treasure. Said treasure leads to an ambiguous carnival themed ending.
  • From EfMI: Guybrush returns to Mêlée Island only to find it's once again on hard times thanks to a hostile takeover, this time from Madison and the new Pirate Leaders trapping the Island in debt. And the SCUMM bar is once again torn down by the events of the game.
• Red Herring: "At the End of the Plank". You'll find copies of the very conspicuous purple-and-gold-covered romantic story all over the place, in the hands of various major NPC. You'll probably expect it to be part of a puzzle at some point. It is never relevant to anything. All you get is an achievement for checking every copy in the game. Special mention to the copy in Carla's library, which despite being the only uniquely colored book on the shelf that you can borrow at any time, serves entirely to distract you away from the two other books that actually get used in puzzles.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • The opening pokes fun at the series penchant for the endings not standing up to the rest of the game with Boybrush telling his dad Guybrush that he makes up weird endings for his version of his dad's stories because his always feel kind of unfinished.
  • Guybrush repurposes Murray as a figurehead for his jury-rigged ship. When he and Elaine make landfall back at Mêlée Island, Guybrush tells Murray to keep watch over the ship and warns him not to get "any funny ideas." Murray replies: "No problem, I'll just pretend I'm one of the writers."
• "Shaggy Dog" Story:
  • Really, all of chapter 1 to 3. Guybrush goes through hurdle after hurdle, sneaks on LeChuck's ship, goes to Monkey Island, teams up with his own enemies to decipher the map to the Secret, that turns out to be hidden... on Melee Island, inside the locked chest in the voodoo shop. When getting back to Melee, Guybrush isn't exactly happy that both the Voodoo Lady and Wally let him go on his wild chase despite both of them already knowing it was pointless.
  • Throughout Chapter 4, Elaine is confronted (and experiences) the results of Guybrush's adventuring throughout the game. Wildlife ruined, months of her own work undone, untold damages to society. She talks to him about it but doesn't even sound angry and this leads nowhere.
• She Is the King: Gender-inverted. Brrr Muda is specifically said to be ruled over by a queen, and Guybrush challenges the current one to get her crown. When he wins, he is declared the new queen of Brrr Muda.
• Shout-Out:
  • To disguise himself, Guybrush needs to find the eyepatch of Jon Laney, "the pirate of a thousand faces." This is a reference to actor Lon Chaney, who was renowned as "the man of a thousand faces."
  • If Guybrush asks about the coffin and oar in the museum, he will be told that it was used by a certain well-known captain in a daring escape from a Turkish prison.
  • As one would expect from a Monkey Island game, there's at least one nod to Star Wars:
    • The chef at the SCUMM Bar refers to the mop as "Not as clumsy or random as a dishrag. An elegant tool for a more civilized cleaning." His speech as a whole makes it clear that the entire mop subplot is intended to be a not-so-subtle analogue to a Jedi or Sith's journey to build their own lightsaber. Asking him further about it has him reference the "heart of the blade" speech from the Expanded Universe.
    • Wally's spying window bears resemblance to the cockpit window of a TIE Advanced.
    • When Cobb says he can't remove his "Ask me about LOOM" button anymore because it's "fused with his body", he goes on to say he's "more button than man, now."
    • Later in the game, when you are at the summit of the plateau of Monkey Island with the pirate leaders, you are asked if you have any last words, to which you can answer: "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine," the same last words Obi-Wan Kenobi spoke during his last duel against Darth Vader.
  • Terror Island includes a puzzle centered on navigating a network of 'twisty passages, mostly similar,' with a sign labeled XYZZY being used to teleport back to the entrance.
  • Inspecting the anchor in the prologue will cause Dee to go into a long-winded, detailed explanation on the history of anchors that puts Boybrush to sleep, similarly to how Pajama Sam zonked out in response to Otto's moment of "gratuitous educational content" on geysers. Appropriately enough Ron Gilbert founded Humongous Entertainment who developed the latter, and Dave Grossman was the primary writer on most of the Pajama Sam games.
  • Guybrush at one point sings the opening lyrics to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride's song, "A Pirate's Life For Me." This is the first Monkey Island game made since LucasArts and the Monkey Island IP was acquired by Disney, bringing MI and PotC under the same corporate umbrella, allowing such a clear shout-out to be made.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: When Elaine makes her first appearance in the story, Guybrush's son immediately becomes fearful that this is going to be a 'mushy part.' Guybrush agrees to skip over the 'hugs and kisses' but even then, this (and every) interaction Guybrush has with Elaine throughout the game is extraordinarily sweet.
• Stealth Pun: The locksmith has a map that she identifies as southern Florida. AKA the Florida Keys.
  • Brrrmuda is the shape of a triangle.
• Still Got It: In a letter to the fans from Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman unlocked when the game is finished in the scrapbook, the two posit that this is one of the main themes of the game. Each Monkey Island reflects where its creators were in their lives and career when they made it. And thus "Return" is about Guybrush trying to recapture the glory of his youth, the same way his designers are trying to by making the game.
  "Guybrush, like us, is older now, and he's had a long and reasonably successful career. But he's mostly associated with something that happened a long time ago, and that feels unfinished to him. The game is a goofy pirate adventure, the same as always, but also it's a story about trying to recapture the past, with all its alleged youthful strength and glory. Guybrush will both succeed and fail at this. He will sort of get what he wants, but it won't be what he expected.
  I predict the same for us."
• The Stinger: Depending on the ending you choose, whether or not you got the key to unlock the chest for the Secret of Monkey Island, if you decide to open it, and the final choice on the dialogue tree, after the end of the credits you'll get one of ten different epilogue scenes. This article by fansite The International House of Mojo shows off them all (spoilers, obviously).
• Stupid Evil: Gullet, the First Swab gets a kick out of making a mess for Guybrush, undercover as a swab, to clean up, to the point he spills the potion vital for reaching Monkey Island just to make another mess and dearly pays for it when LeChuck just so happens to be behind him.
• Surprisingly Super-Tough Thing: At the end of Act IV, Guybrush Threepwood completes the quest to find the five Golden Keys to unlock The Secret of Monkey Island... only to find a chest within that chest. He decides he's not going to bother searching for a sixth key. Cue a montage of Guybrush trying everything he can think of to open it, culminating with him trying to chew it open.
• Take That!: In the Release Date trailer, as the Pre-Order Bonus, Stan offers horse armor as an inventory item. The trailer ends with a long-winded disclaimer that says that the horse armor is completely pointless.
  • Hovering over the horse armor in your inventory as the game progresses will give increasingly sarcastic comments on its uselessness, and it's very telling that, besides showing it to Stan and a few other characters who don't care about it, the only thing Guybrush can actually do with the Horse Armor is throw it in a fire.
  • There's a ship at sea that's self-isolating because they've got scurvy. The pirates on this ship are wearing Tinfoil Hats, and they won't accept limes as a potential remedy because the reasoning is scientific. After getting a marketing makeover you offer the remedy again and they double-check if there's no science involved. The game was developed during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
• Talks Like a Simile: Makes a fish story good like a big bucket of bait.
• Third Time's The Charm: While an optional Side Quest, this time you can actually rescue Wally from being chained down by LeChuck and not leave him to an Uncertain Doom.
• Token Human: Flair Gorey, the only living human on LeChuck's crew. Aside from a disguised Guybrush, that is.
• Too Dumb to Live: At one point, LeChuck promises his crew free grog as there is cause for celebration, and they all throw their respective headgear into the air, or the closest thing. Guybrush, disguised thanks to a magical eyepatch, throws his disguise into the air as well, revealing himself to the crew and most importantly, his arch-nemesis.
• Trees into Toothpicks: Once Guybrush finds the mop tree, he needs to take a handle out of it. He utterly demolishes the tree to do so, and the surrounding ones as well.
• Unexplained Recovery: After being tossed off a cliff, Guybrush is left visibly broken at the bottom, his limbs twisted from the impact. The moment Murray reveals he's got the map, Guybrush's limbs snap back to normal and he stands up, seemingly healed.
  • It's also not explained how LeChuck is back in zombie form, when at the end of Tales, his voodoo essence was trapped in a jar.
• Unequal Rites: The game introduces dark magic, which involves runes and Gratuitous Latin spells as opposed to the series trademark voodoo. They're not really portrayed as more powerful than the other, but the New Pirate Leaders's sponsorship of the former has been driving the Voodoo Lady out of a job.
• The Unintelligible: The nigh-entirety of the population of Brrr Muda only speaks in grunts. Guybrush only attempts to talk to them a few times before switching to making his own funny noises.
• Unreliable Narrator:
  • The previous games of the series are recapped through Guybrush's scrapbook. Guybrush does, however, omit and alter a few details of the stories to portray himself in a somewhat more favorable light. The main example is his recap of Curse of Monkey Island, where he claims that it was LeChuck who turned Elaine into a golden statue. While LeChuck did have the cursed ring that caused Elaine's transformation in his possession, it was actually Guybrush who stole it and, being unaware of the curse, inadvertently unleashed it upon Elaine by using the ring to propose to her.
  • The entire game itself has a framing device of Guybrush recounting his adventure to his son and there are implications he's doing this. Most notably, like in the 2nd game, Guybrush can claim to have died, which he is immediately called out on, since he's clearly alive right now telling the story. At the end, Elaine notes the story gets weirder each time he tells it.
• Unsatisfiable Customer: Marlon Marlin, a Rich Bitch freight magnate, stops by the Scumm Bar, where he mistakes Guybrush for the waiter and insists on being served the dish he had at the governor's mansion a week ago. All he can remember of the meal was that it had "ingredients" in it, but he's not leaving until he gets it. The cook has nightmares about him and dreads his every visit.
• Video Game Caring Potential: You have optional sidequests that allow you to help people. You get nothing in exchange besides achievements, thus if you do it, you only do it out of kindness of your own heart.
  • My using Guybrush's coin purse on various characters, Guybrush can pay off his outstanding tabs with them. This isn't required to progress.
  • Special mention goes to saving Wally from his imprisonment as it requires a lot of foresight to pull off but if you manage it you get an achievement and give the poor guy a break.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: During Act IV and V, Guybrush can end up doing most of the things on LeChuck's training pamphlet. They're all pretty bad and highlight Guybrush's sociopathic obsession to find The Secret.
• Villain Team-Up: After a prolonged battle, LeChuck and the new pirate leaders led by Captain Madison find out that they are pretty evenly matched. As a result, they agree to help each other out in their search for The Secret and then split it evenly. As they shake hands on their deal, the camera immediately cuts behind their backs, showing that both of them are doing Lying Finger Crosses with their free hand.
• Was It Really Worth It?: Elaine directly asks Guybrush after learning of all the chaos he's been causing in his search of the Secret of Monkey Island because at this point she just doesn't know what the Secret could possibly be that would make all of it worth it. Guybrush doesn't quite seem to know either, but he's still going anyway. In the ending, he has the option to fully agree that it wasn't worth it.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Twist Ending aside; Trent and Madison are implied to have died offscreen, and Lila runs after LeChuck for a final confrontation. We never see what happens/happened.
  • Played for laughs with the Voodoo Lady, who inexplicably disappears from the game from chapter 4 onwards despite quite a bit of the action taking place in her shop. One of the optional epilogue scenes reveals she just went on a really long lunch break and missed the entire endgame.
• What the Hell, Hero?: During Chapter 4, the game repeatedly cuts away to Elaine learning about Guybrush's trail of destruction (the mop tree, assaulting Herman, destroying the Brrr Mudan crown and plunging the kingdom into anarchy, etc), which she eventually calls him out (though not very hard) on as they approach the Giant Monkey Head.
• You Fight Like a Cow: It's not an in-depth minigame like in previous games, but elements of insult swordfighting come up from time to time. Possibly to highlight Guybrush's experience in the art, only valid retorts are available for the player to choose from. That said, when LeChuck doesn't know a good retort, he just punches Guybrush, which Guybrush calls him out on. He then gives a retort to one of Guybrush's retorts, which Guybush was not expecting.
• You Have Failed Me:
  • LeChuck gets rid of Gullet, his own first swab after he spills the voodoo potion to reach Monkey Island to taunt a disguised Guybrush. While Gullet survives, being a zombie, he ends up struck under the rudder of the ship. In the latter half of the game, LeChuck also disposes of his quartermaster, Iron Rose, for pointing out that his obsession for the Secret has consumed him and for showing mercy to a prisoner (Wally, in this case).
  • Played for Laughs with Bob, who has done nothing wrong (not recently, at least), but his job is to be tied up and hung upside down to show what happens to anyone who fails LeChuck.

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