Ron Gilbert starts production on Thimbleweed Park 2 for early 2028

Ron Gilbert has started production on Thimbleweed Park 2, a follow-up to the 2017 point-and-click adventure, with release planned for early 2028. Gilbert announced the project on his personal blog, Grumpy Gamer, and said the game will be self-published with backing from a private investor, as the first game was self-published before it.

Several members of the original team are returning, among them Mark Ferrari, Gary Winnick, David Fox, Octavi Navarro and Robert Megone. Polygon notes that Winnick co-created the first game with Gilbert. The sequel is planned for Windows, macOS and Linux; PC Gamer reports it will be sold on both Steam and GOG. Gilbert said he intends to start a dedicated development blog for the sequel and post to it regularly, as he did during work on the original.

Not really a sequel, not really a prequel

The game's Steam listing is currently sparse, but Rock Paper Shotgun reports that it describes the project as "more Thimbleweed Park than ever" and returns agents Ray and Reyes, this time to Edmund Mansion and a dead body. The same listing states the game is "not really a sequel" and "not really a prequel." PC Gamer characterises the setup as a spoof of a classic whodunit in which every resident of the mansion is a suspect apart from the butler.

The 2017 original was a LucasArts-style murder mystery that drew openly on Twin Peaks and The X-Files, following two FBI agents investigating a killing in the town of Thimbleweed Park. It scored 84% in PC Gamer's review, which credited its puzzles, its cast of oddball residents and its mystery plot. Polygon places it within the point-and-click revival of the 2010s alongside Kentucky Route Zero and Broken Age, noting that where those games reworked the genre's conventions, Thimbleweed Park stayed close to the adventure games of the 1980s and 1990s.

A return after a cancellation

The announcement follows a setback. Rock Paper Shotgun reports that a previous Gilbert project, described as "Classic Zelda meets Diablo meets Thimbleweed Park," was cancelled at the end of last year. PC Gamer also points to comments Gilbert made in 2025, when he said he was no longer especially interested in making 2D adventure games and doubted the form would outlast its makers. Gilbert and Winnick led development on a run of LucasArts point-and-click titles in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including Maniac Mansion and the Monkey Island series; Gilbert returned to the latter with Return to Monkey Island in 2022.