Return to Monkey Island has a massive cameo for The Last of Us and Uncharted director Neil Druckmann, and it's not even the first crossover between these two distinct gaming worlds.
Druckmann, best known as the creative director of The Last of Us, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, and The Last of Us Part II, voices a minor character in Return to Monkey Island. You may not recognize his voice when you hear it, but as Eurogamer notes, there's no mistaking his name in the cast list of the credits.
I haven't reached the point where Druckmann's character appears, and it's apparently quite deep in the game - I've not yet run across him through the first three chapters. But you don't need to take anyone's word about his appearance. Druckmann tweeted about his role in the game, calling the cameo one of his "life goals." That tweet is now pinned to the top of Druckmann's Twitter profile, too.
If you know, you know.(My eternal gratitude to @grumpygamer, @craigderrick, & @kbavoice for topping my life goals! Still can’t believe it! Ahhhhhhh!) pic.twitter.com/CHtpUXjMVxSeptember 22, 2022
If you need any proof that there's some real Monkey Island fandom at Naughty Dog, look no further than Uncharted 4. During that game, you'll run across a series of portraits of pirate captains, including one named 'Guy Wood,' an obvious tribute to Monkey Island protagonist Guybrush Threepwood.
"I asked one of the concept artists to do it," Druckmann said in a 2016 interview with VentureBeat when asked about the Easter egg. "I thought I would just sneak it in there, and then word got out that it was in the game. Then HR came up to me and said we had to get permission for it. We couldn’t leave it in the game. So I thought, dammit, Disney will make us take it out. But we reached out to Disney and they actually said they were flattered, so we could go for it. That was pretty cool."
We call the new adventure game a "a nostalgic, swashbuckling adventure you won't want to miss" in our 4.5 star Return to Monkey Island review, and it's well worth checking out even if you're not a Druckmann-level fan of the iconic series.
