Ron Gilbert says Thimbleweed Park 2 has just started production for an early 2028 release, with returning original-team talent, a Steam page, and a deliberately slippery sequel premise.
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Store links: Thimbleweed Park 2 on Steam
Thimbleweed Park 2 is real, but the label is deliberately slippery
Thimbleweed Park 2 has entered production and is targeting early 2028, Ron Gilbert announced on his Grumpy Gamer blog. That is the firmest piece of news here: the project has started, Gilbert says it will be self-published with the help of a private investor, and several members of the original Thimbleweed Park team are returning.
The more interesting wrinkle is how the game is being framed. The Steam page describes Thimbleweed Park 2 as “Not really a sequel. Not really a prequel. It’s more Thimbleweed Park and just as weird.” That is not a coy marketing aside so much as a warning label for fans expecting a clean continuation. The confirmed setup brings back Agents Ray and Reyes, places a dead body at Edmund Mansion, and casts the case as a point-and-click spoof of a classic whodunit where everyone in the mansion is a suspect. It also immediately undercuts that familiar detective hook with the line that Ray and Reyes are back “to investigate… or are they?”
For a point and click adventure game built on genre memory, unreliable premises, and old-school comedy craft, that ambiguity is probably the feature rather than the confusion. What is confirmed is a return to Thimbleweed Park’s town, characters, pixel-art adventure format, and murder-mystery framing. What is not confirmed is whether the game will answer the first game in a traditional chronological way, rewind around it, or use the sequel label as another toy in the box.
The returning team gives the announcement real weight
Gilbert’s post names Mark Ferrari, Gary Winnick, David Fox, Octavi Navarro, Robert Megone, and others from the original team as returning for Thimbleweed Park 2. That matters because the first game’s identity was unusually craft-specific: its pixel art, verb-driven interface, puzzle cadence, and dry comic timing leaned hard into the language of LucasArts-style adventures without being a simple museum piece.
Game Informer describes the 2017 original as a successful throwback led by Maniac Mansion co-creators Gary Winnick and Ron Gilbert, with Gilbert also known for Monkey Island. The outlet also notes that Thimbleweed Park launched on March 30, 2017 after a successful Kickstarter campaign. Nintendo Life similarly places the first game in the early Switch eShop era, calling it one of the platform’s early delights, while Rock Paper Shotgun frames the new announcement as good news for players hungry for pixel-art adventure games.
The production model has changed. Gilbert says Thimbleweed Park 2 will be self-published with private-investor help rather than presenting it as a new crowdfunding campaign. That does not tell us budget, scope, ownership structure, or price. It does tell readers that the creators are setting up a long runway with a publishing plan already in place. Gilbert also says he plans to restart a Thimbleweed Park 2 development blog like the one used for the original, which should give fans a slower, more transparent build-up than a standard trailer-drop cycle.
The Edmund Mansion setup sounds classic, then immediately starts misbehaving
The Steam description is thin, but it is pointed. “This time the dead body is at the Edmund Mansion,” the listing says, with Ray and Reyes apparently investigating a mansion full of suspects. It also promises that the murderer will be confronted by the detectives “if you can find them,” and jokes that “it’s not the butler.” Those are sturdy whodunit ingredients: a contained location, a victim, a suspect pool, and a detective structure.
The listed returning faces complicate that comfort. Rock Paper Shotgun cites the Steam page’s character teases for Ransome, Delores, and Franklin, alongside Ray and Reyes. Game Informer also names Delores and Franklin Edmund, plus Ransome the Clown, as returning characters. For fans of the first game, that roster is the clue that Thimbleweed Park 2 is leaning back into the ensemble weirdness rather than narrowing itself into a pure detective case.
This is where the “not really a sequel, not really a prequel” line becomes useful. A conventional Thimbleweed Park sequel would need to account for the first game’s ending in a way that satisfied everyone, which is a tall order for a story that already enjoyed poking at the walls of its own fiction. In the comments on Gilbert’s announcement post, one reader said they could not imagine how a sequel would work “considering how the first one ended.” Gilbert replied, “That’s half the fun!” That is not a plot explanation, but it is a creator signal: the continuity problem is visible to the team, and they appear to be treating it as part of the design space.
Platforms are clearer on computers than consoles
Right now, Steam is the public storefront anchor. The Steam page is live and available to wishlist, but Rock Paper Shotgun describes it as bare bones, and the source material does not include a price, trailer, system requirements, supported languages, controller details, or a final release date beyond the 2028 window.
Gilbert added platform information that is easy to miss because he put it in postscript form. On Grumpy Gamer, he says Steam does not show it yet, but there will be Mac, Windows, and Linux versions. He also says there will be a GOG version. Those are creator-stated plans, not simply assumptions from the Steam listing.
Console players should be more cautious. Nintendo Life reports that a console release has not been confirmed at this early stage. The outlet points to how well the first game sold on Switch as a reason it would not be surprising to see a future Switch release, but that remains expectation, not announcement. As of the provided sources, no PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo version has been confirmed for Thimbleweed Park 2.
A 2028 target means adventure fans should expect a slow reveal
The timing is unusually candid. Gilbert says production has “just started” and gives an early 2028 target. That combination should set expectations better than any teaser image could. This is not a game with a near-term marketing calendar hiding behind vague language. It is a project being announced near the start of production, with the creators inviting players to follow along through development updates.
There is also no trailer yet. Game Informer specifically notes that Terrible Toybox has not released one. For a point and click adventure game, that leaves several important design questions open: how close the interface will stay to the first game’s retro verbs, how puzzles will be structured, whether multiple playable characters return as a central mechanic, and how the mansion setting affects pacing and navigation. The sources confirm tone and premise before they confirm systems.
That is a healthy place for fan patience. The first Thimbleweed Park’s appeal was not only the joke density or pixel art, but the way its puzzles asked players to read scenes, characters, inventories, and genre expectations with care. If Thimbleweed Park 2 is early in production, puzzle design and narrative structure are exactly the areas most likely to benefit from time, iteration, and the returning team’s shared language. The tradeoff is obvious: anyone waiting for the next substantial look may be waiting months, not weeks.
The first game’s reception is part of the sequel’s challenge
Thimbleweed Park was broadly remembered as a strong modern revival of the LucasArts-style point-and-click adventure, but the sources also show that expectations are not uncomplicated. Game Informer’s review history matters here: the outlet says former editor Elise Favis scored the original an 8.5 out of 10, praising its humor, improved puzzle design, “stellar characters,” and smart puzzles, while also saying some narrative twists did not always land.
That caveat has followed the game in fan conversation. A Reddit thread collecting the Thimbleweed Park 2 announcement includes early commenters praising the original’s atmosphere, detective work, puzzles, retro interface, and difficulty balance, while others say the ending soured the experience for them. Reddit comments are anecdotal, not a survey of the audience, but they point to the live tension around this announcement: players are excited to return to the town, yet some are bracing for another ending that toys with expectation.
That makes the sequel-prequel phrasing more than a cute oddity. It gives Gilbert and the team room to engage with Thimbleweed Park’s ending without promising a neat patch, retcon, or straight-line follow-up. For fans, the smart expectation is not that Thimbleweed Park 2 will tidy the first game into conventional franchise continuity. The stronger read from the Steam page and Gilbert’s comment is that the game will make the act of returning strange on purpose.
Wishlist if you want the dev diary ride, wait if you need firm details
The practical guidance is simple. If you are already sold on Gilbert, Winnick, and the original team returning to a pixel-art murder mystery, wishlisting Thimbleweed Park 2 on Steam is currently the main action available. Gilbert also says a development blog is coming, so wishlisting and following official updates should be the best way to track the long march to 2028.
If you need platform certainty, price, performance information, or proof of how the “not really a sequel, not really a prequel” idea plays in actual puzzles, wait. The confirmed computer plans are Mac, Windows, Linux, Steam, and GOG, based on Gilbert’s own post. Console versions remain unannounced. No trailer has been released in the supplied source material. The Steam page currently offers premise, tone, and returning characters, but not enough to judge scope.
For point and click fans, the encouraging part is that Thimbleweed Park 2 is being positioned around the things that made the first game stand out: a dead body that is probably the least stable fact in town, returning oddballs, a mansion full of suspects, and a creator team comfortable treating genre rules as puzzle pieces. The wait to early 2028 is long, but at least the mystery has started in the right place: with a body, a mansion, and a sequel that refuses to sit still.