THE MOON QUAY SHORT HAS RELEASED! (Spoilers)

Castaccio · July 1, 2022

With the release of the new update, the accompanying animated short is finally here! Let's tear into it...

Starting with the VERY lore-heavy intro...

Spoiler

We now know where the lunar energy went and how Wagstaff used it—to build another portal, an exact replica of his first.

(Pictured: The chamber used the contain the lunar energy, the new portal it powers, and the same portal as seen in Next of Kin)

We also see that it's not very stable, and explodes immediately upon activation. Wagstaff doesn't even say or do anything about it either—apparently, he just activated the portal and sailed off, completely ignoring the fact that it self-destructed the moment his back was turned.

(Pictured: The Portal on the fritz and exploding into a burst of energy. Wagstaff's boat is seen, as a grainy hologram, in picture 2)

This all being said, his presence as a very grainy hologram shows that he built this portal in the world of Don't Starve Together as opposed to his own (most likely Hamlet). This could mean that he couldn't find a way to transport or project the lunar energy into his world.

Regardless, this leads perfectly into the greatest mystery of the update so far: The Unnatural Portal, which directly results from the explosion.

(Pictured: The Unnatural Portal. A mysterious golden liquid pours out of it)

The aforementioned liquid is probably sand; given that the island it's on top of is entirely rock, all the sand—along with the monkeys themselves—had to come from somewhere. This implies that the monkeys came to the DST world though this portal.

This creates the image of Wagstaff activating the portal, leaving, and coming back to find an island of magical pirate monkeys on top of it, which I find very funny.

The actual trailer begins after the lore-heavy segment ends, so this part is more about breaking down character interactions and what canonically happens to the survivors in this update. (Yes, there are plots in the trailers, and yes I care about them.)

Spoiler

(Pictured: Wilson taking the kids on a fishing trip. It goes about as well as you'd expect when one person does the fishing and the others do nothing.)

You love to see characters interacting, especially Wilson with the kids! Though Wilson seems to be the only one doing anything while the kids are just...there. It's very brief, but it's very cute. This is how their journey starts.

(Pictured: the Monkey Pirates wiping the floor with the survivors)

(Pictured: the Monkey Pirates' island, complete with sand, palm trees, docks, and treasure chests in the process of being buried.)

It seems that their first encounter didn't go well. Given how many people seem to have trouble with the difficulty of pirate raids, this seems about right. Afterwards, it seems they follow the pirates to the Monkey Queen.

(Pictured: the Monkey Queen noticing the survivors as they land on the island, and Wilson giving her gold—which she doesn't accept.)

So it seems that this is the first interaction between the Queen and the survivors. As a story, this makes sense; if there's a queen directing an army to steal your valuables, it makes sense to give them to her in hopes she doesn't enact another raid. I doubt it would be any person's first thought that you give her bananas as trade, given how the island already has so many.

Also, the monkeys looks so cool on the screen and are animated so well, and Webber looks very cute in his bandanna!

(Pictured above: the survivors, having fully decked out two boats and connected them with magnets, fending off a pirate raid.)

There was some other content before this, but it essentially boils down to the survivors upgrading their boat and trying out the new features. Now we get to see them in action as they fend off a pirate raid again—successfully this time. Also, all three of them have pirate hats now!

Now, however, comes the stinger: who gets to be cursed?

(Picture above: Wendy encountering and coming into contact with a cursed Trinket. Apparently, it doesn't smell very good.)

(Picture above: Wendy, unsuspectful of the cursed trinket that slithered up behind her, as she stars out into the sea along with Wilson and Webber.)

Leading up to the update, I honestly thought that Wilson would be the one who'd be cursed first, considering he's the most curious of all of the survivors, but Wendy is actually a very interesting choice. It's interesting to think about Wendy having a crisis over being turned into a stinky, filthy monkey while Webber and Wilson (and perhaps Abigail, if she can contain her laughter) act as moral support.

This took a while, but I think it's worth it! We have some fun shenanigans from the trailer, and an absolute bombshell in the intro. What do you all think?