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Book Home  Books Information Ultima
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.
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