Ultima · RetroWeb

Ultima is the series in which you can watch the western RPG learn to be more than a combat system. Richard Garriott started it on eight-bit home computers at the end of the seventies and, through Origin Systems, turned it into a run of games that set the standard for everyone else. The decisive break came with Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar in 1985. There was no dark lord to defeat; instead the player pursued eight virtues, and the game quietly noted whether you lied to shopkeepers, fled from fights or robbed the weak. Making morality the actual content of a game was unheard of then, and people still point back to it.

The sequels deepened Britannia rather than replacing it. Ultima V asked what happens when virtue hardens into dogma enforced by power, Ultima VI blurred the line between people and monsters, and Ultima VII: The Black Gate presented in 1992 a seamless world where characters kept daily routines and almost every object could be picked up, baked into bread or scattered across the floor. For many players the seventh game remains the unmatched peak. Ultima Underworld, made around the same time, rendered its dungeon in real time from a first-person view and became the template for the immersive sim lineage. The closing Ultima IX in 1999 failed to give the saga the ending it deserved, but Britannia's mark on open worlds and on role-playing itself is impossible to miss.

Entries in the series (19)

Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness · 1982

One of the founders of the CRPG genre; a top-down world map combined with first-person dungeons.

A800

Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress · 1982

Time travel appears in the series for the first time; battles with Minax take place directly in real time on the map.

A800 DOS

Ultima VI: The False Prophet · 1982

Zlomový díl série: ovládání myší a živý svět plný postav.

DOS C64 SNES

Ultima III: Exodus · 1983

One of the works that defined the computer RPG; a party and turn-based battles in Sosaria.

A800 DOS

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar · 1985

A groundbreaking RPG where, instead of fighting a villain, you pursue the eight virtues and moral self-improvement.

A800 C64

Ultima: Exodus · 1987

První Ultima s družinou, přeskládaná pro gamepad a konzoli Famicom

NES

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny · 1988

The peak of Garriott's series; the C64's open world tackles the morality of freedom and tyranny.

DOS C64 Amiga

Ultima VII: The Black Gate · 1990

Pro mnohé vrchol série Ultima; živý svět plný postav a vedlejších cest.

DOS SNES

Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire · 1990

A spin-off on the Ultima VI engine set in a prehistoric jungle instead of Britannia.

DOS

Ultima: Runes of Virtue · 1991

A top-down action RPG based on the Ultima series; collecting virtue runes opens the way forward.

Worlds of Ultima: Martian Dreams · 1991

Tesla, Twain and Freud get stranded on Mars in the 19th century after a failed Moon flight.

DOS

Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss · 1992

From 1992; the first proof that a living world could exist in a first-person perspective.

DOS

Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds · 1993

It expanded the first game's concept into a set of worlds linked by portals within a crystal.

DOS

Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle · 1993

A darker sequel to Black Gate on the same engine; a world where the line between good and evil blurs.

DOS

Ultima: Runes of Virtue II · 1993

A sequel to the Ultima action RPG with two-player co-op via link cable.

Ultima: Warriors of Destiny · 1993

Pátý Ultima převedený na osmibit, kuriozita i pro sběratele série.

NES

Ultima VIII: Pagan · 1994

The Avatar, stripped of his usual abilities, learns elemental magic; more linear than the series was known for.

DOS

Ultima Online · 1997

Opened the gate to a persistent online world even in the era of dial-up modems; thousands of players in Britannia.

Win9x

Ultima IX: Ascension · 1999

Concluded one of the most influential RPG series in history with a transition into a three-dimensional world.

Win9x