Having barely escaped LeChuck's dreadful amusement park, Guybrush Threepwood finds himself stuck in the middle of the sea, with nothing in his boat but a sausage and a diary. Musing over the events that have led him into this predicament, Guybrush suddenly discovers a ship navigated by none other than his archenemy. Once again, Guybrush saves his beloved Elaine from the claws of his undead rival. In the midst of the treasure that belonged to the defeated foe Guybrush finds a ring. Overwhelmed by his love to Elaine, he proposes marriage to her and gives her the ring. What he doesn't know is that the ring is cursed; before he is able to realize what is happening, Elaine is turned into a gold statue. Will Guybrush be able to lift the curse and to save his one and only love?

This third installment of the Monkey Island is, like its predecessors, a humorous puzzle-solving adventure game. The game features cartoon-style SVGA graphics and (for the first time in the series) voice-overs for all the conversations. The interface no longer involves a list of verbs that occupies a part of the screen; instead, it follows the same principle as in Full Throttle: the player chooses first the object to interact with, then the action from a menu that appears. Like the second game, The Curse of Monkey Island has two difficulty levels.