Enlarge / Guybrush Threepwood's enthusiasm to meet some character archetypes from Sea of Thieves does not seemingly match that of his creator. (credit: Rare/LucasFilm Games)

If Microsoft's Rare studio and Disney's Lucasfilm Games (formerly LucasArts) want to make a Monkey Island crossover DLC for Sea of Thieves , they do not, in fact, have to ask the original game's creator, Ron Gilbert.

In a Mastodon thread responding to a fan's question on Sunday, Gilbert wrote that, "nope," he wasn't involved with Sea of Thieves: The Legend of Monkey Island , an expansion to Rare Limited's multiplayer open-world pirate game themed around the iconic Monkey Island point-and-click adventure series. "Wasn't even told about it. Happened behind my back."

Terrible Toybox, the firm with which Gilbert has recently worked to release games like Thimbleweed Park and Return to Monkey Island , attempted to clarify Gilbert's statement on Monday, telling Eurogamer that Disney "did give [Gilbert] a heads-up on the project as a courtesy, but the game was well into development at that point, and he wasn't given the opportunity to be meaningfully involved."

Enlarge / That's the second-biggest title screen I've ever seen! (credit: Terrible Toybox / Lucasfilm Games)

For a certain kind of adventure gaming fan, no sentence is harder to hear than this: "I learned the secret of Monkey Island before you did." But I can now say it. I've played, completed, and fallen madly for Return to Monkey Island , a sequel more than three decades in the making. This is a game full of laughs, whimsy, and puzzles as carefully constructed as the stories that surround them.

But I'm not here to spoil any of your upcoming pirate fun. I've been writing reviews for long enough to remember how great it felt to read about a new video game before playing a single minute of it. That's how we did things while saving up enough money to get our own boxed copies of older Monkey Island games, then prying them open and figuring out their Dial-a-Pirate copy-protection puzzles .

Return to Monkey Island is nearly everything I'd hoped for in a modern return to the series. Its interface and controls split the difference between the expectations of hardcore genre fans and those of point-and-click novices. Its presentation and voice acting pair nicely to set an approachable and fiendishly hilarious tone. And the game's full journey, from bumpy waters to smooth, silly sailing, consistently feels personal, vulnerable, and reflective of its creators—which is to say, this is the opposite of a nostalgia-reeking cash-in.

Enlarge / Dave Grossman (L) and Ron Gilbert (R) joined Ars Technica for a rare interview in Seattle at PAX West 2022. (credit: Sam Machkovech)

SEATTLE—Longtime game designer Ron Gilbert has repeatedly suggested that a sequel to his beloved Monkey Island series would arrive how fans want it: unspoiled. It's a major reason why the point-and-click adventure's pre-release period has been devoid of gameplay footage or other major giveaways of what to expect, lest any of its puzzles or jokes be ruined.

As the long-awaited Return to Monkey Island approaches its September 19 release date, then, interested fans will have to tide themselves over with the bones Gilbert and his collaborator Dave Grossman threw my way at this weekend's PAX West. After I entered their meeting room and sheathed my camera, the pair turned on an external display, picked up a computer mouse, and began goading hero Guybrush Threepwood around the new game's environs.

You might be jealous, but I would argue that your comparable ignorance about how the game looks and sounds is a happier place to be until September 19. My patience for this game's release has now dwindled.