Secret of Monkey Island remake drops anchor July 15

Publisher LucasArts revealed today it would bring a bit of the Star Wars universe to the Steam network with 10 of its PC titles going live this Wednesday, including Star Wars Battlefront II and Star Wars Republic Commando. In the publisher's same announcement, it also revealed it would bring a revamped version of the progenitor of the Monkey Island universe, The Secret of Monkey Island, online on July 15.

The publisher announced that the 1990 action adventure reboot would be released on Xbox Live, Steam, "and other online distribution channels." LucasArts also "may have another platform announcement to make very, very soon" for the game, according to producer Craig Derrick in an interview with UK daily The Guardian posted on June 29. The release of The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition will come about a week after the release of another franchise game, Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 1: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. That game will be available for PC download on Tuesday.

As outlined in GameSpot's preview, the game features several major changes, including revamped high-res hand-painted art, "close-up" cutscenes during dialogue scenes, full-speech voice acting, and a brand-new score recorded from live instruments. The special edition also allows players to revert the graphics to nostalgically look exactly like the original game's, with pixelated characters and noiseless dialogue.

Check out the video below to see an E3 demo of the upcoming game.