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Ultima

Ultima is a series of fantasy computer role-playing games from Origin Systems, Inc.. Ultima was created by Richard Garriott, a.k.a. Lord British. Several games of the series are considered seminal games of their genre. Today, Electronic Arts holds the brand.

Overview

Ultima tells the story of a hero who would be summoned by the ruler of a different world known first as Sosaria, later as Britannia, whenever troubles would arise and put in danger the peace of the land. The ruler of that world is called Lord British, and his pleas would be answered by a stranger coming from another world known only as Earth through a magical portal. As time passed, that hero would overcome several obstacles and fight several entities (both in Britannia and in other planes), and gain the title of Avatar, becoming the embodiment of virtues.

The Ultima series can be divided in three parts. The first three games (Ultima I-III), the "Age of Darkness" trilogy, are the typical "kill the evil overlord" fantasy games. Ironically the antagonists of the first three games appear to do nothing but reside in their castles, while the protagonist has the option of stealing and murdering. The next three games (Ultima IV-VI), the "Age of Enlightenment" trilogy, add a revolutionary moral element into the fantasy game genre. The character had to attain the eight virtues of honesty, compassion, valor, justice, sacrifice, honor, spirituality and humility. The eight virtues are loosely based on the Chivalry code of knighthood (but without any explicit Christianity) and are similar to ideas from the movie The Wizard of Oz; though Garriott denies that they were the original source. The third and final trilogy (Ultima VII-IX), the "Age of Armageddon" (also known as The Guardian Saga), pits the Avatar against an anti-virtue deity known as the Guardian.

Ultima I-V were originally developed on and released for the Apple II family of computers. All the games from Ultima VI on were developed on IBM PC compatible machines. The earlier Ultima games were ported to many computer types, including 8-bit Atari (Ultima I-IV), Atari ST (Ultima II-VI), Commodore 64 (Ultima I-VI), Commodore Amiga (Ultima III-VI) and IBM PC (Ultima I-V).

The Ultima games were also famous for the trinkets included in the game boxes. From Ultima II on, every main Ultima game came with a cloth map of the game world. Starting with Ultima IV, small trinkets like pendants, coins and magic stones were found in the boxes. Made of metal or glass, they usually represented an important object also found within the game itself.

The creator, Richard Garriott, no longer owns the rights to the game, nor participates in the development.

There is also a substantial community of Ultima fans known as the Ultima Dragons.