Ultima (series)
Ultima is a series of open world fantasy role-playing games from Origin Systems, created by Richard Garriott, and it sold over two million copies by 1997. Few game series can claim to have invented the vocabulary of an entire genre, yet alongside Wizardry and Might and Magic, Ultima did exactly that. Its earliest installments introduced conventions that competitors then copied widely. The questions worth asking are: how did a series that began with a simple wizard-slaying quest end up designing a philosophy of virtue? And why did its creator eventually find himself locked out of his own creation?
Garriott released the first entry in 1981. By the time the ninth and final main installment arrived in 1999, the series had spanned nearly two decades, nine numbered games, two major spin-off lines, console adaptations, manga in Japan, and a massively multiplayer online world that outlasted most of its competitors. What holds all of it together is a fictional realm called Britannia and a recurring hero whose identity shifts from nameless wanderer to embodiment of all moral virtue.
Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness arrived in 1981, casting a character called the Stranger as a savior of Sosaria. The villain Mondain possessed the Gem of Immortality, making him invulnerable; the solution was to travel back in time and kill him before the Gem existed. That combination of fantasy and time travel set a pattern the series would revisit repeatedly.
Ultima II in 1982 introduced Mondain's secret student and lover, Minax, whose revenge opened doorways to different periods of Earth's history. Ultima III in 1983 revealed that Mondain and Minax had produced an offspring, Exodus, described in later games as "neither human, nor machine" and depicted at the game's conclusion as a demonic, self-aware artificial intelligence. Exodus was also the first installment to feature a player party system, a mechanic that spread widely through the genre.
The nine main installments are grouped into three trilogies. The Age of Darkness covers parts one through three. The Age of Enlightenment covers parts four through six. The Age of Armageddon, also called the Guardian Saga, covers parts seven through nine. Garriott himself later admitted that the first trilogy had little internal planning; he described parts one through three as "Richard Garriott learns to program." Parts four through six were "a backwards-designed trilogy," tied together as he wrote them. Only parts seven through nine were planned in advance as a cohesive story.
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, released in 1985, abandoned the traditional hero-versus-villain structure entirely. Lord British's kingdom of Britannia was prospering, so the challenge became spiritual rather than military. The player's actions through the game determined how closely the Stranger approached an ideal of virtue across eight dimensions: Honesty, Compassion, Valor, Justice, Sacrifice, Honor, Spirituality, and Humility. These Eight Virtues derived from Three Principles of Truth, Love, and Courage.
Garriott's motivation traced partly to criticism he received after Ultima III. Parents wrote letters objecting to the series for allowing theft and violence against peaceful characters. He also faced complaints about supposed Satanic content tied to the demonic appearance of Exodus. After watching a television program on Hinduism and the concept of avatarhood, Garriott chose to design his next protagonist around a system of eight virtues. The original virtue system was partially inspired by the sixteen ways of purification, called sanskara, and character traits, called samskara, that lead to avatarhood in Hindu tradition. He also drew on The Wizard of Oz, mapping the Scarecrow to truth, the Tin Woodsman to love, and the Cowardly Lion to courage.
Ultima V in 1988 tested the system by inverting it: Lord Blackthorn, ruling in Lord British's absence, converted the virtues into a rigid and draconian legal code. The result was the opposite of virtue, demonstrating that ethics imposed by law do not automatically create good people. Ultima VI in 1990 pushed further, confronting the Avatar with the fact that his virtue-quests looked like aggression from the gargoyles' perspective. The game explored themes of racism and xenophobia by tasking the Avatar with understanding both cultures. By Ultima IX in 1999, the Virtues had been fully inverted into anti-virtues by the Guardian.
The virtue system was later described as an industry standard within role-playing games. It influenced moral systems in Black & White, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and the Fable series. One scholar, Mark Hayse, praised its subtlety: the game carries no explicit point values and offers limited guidance, making the practice of virtue a philosophical journey rather than a puzzle to solve.
Ultima VII: The Black Gate in 1992 introduced the Guardian, described as a large red humanoid and a conqueror of worlds from another dimension. For most of that game he appears only as a disembodied voice, working through an organization called the Fellowship, which was inspired by Scientology. The Fellowship's goal was to create a black moongate allowing the Guardian to physically enter Britannia.
The Guardian's true nature was not revealed until Ultima IX in 1999: he was the expelled evil part of the Avatar himself, cast out when the Stranger became the Avatar in Ultima IV. To stop the Guardian, the Avatar had to merge back with it, destroying himself as a separate entity. An unreleased version of the plot took this further, with the Guardian and Lord British both killed, Britannia destroyed, and the Avatar ascending to a higher plane.
The Avatar's design itself carried significance beyond the story. The use of the word "avatar" in Ultima is considered the first time the word represented a concept defined by its modern virtual context, as a digital stand-in for a real person. Players could choose the Avatar's name in every game except Ultima IX; they could also select race, gender, and appearance in Ultima IV onward. Ultima VIII fixed the Avatar as a blond-haired, blue-eyed male, which was an exception to that openness. Ultima VII and Ultima Underworld introduced full dialog; Ultima IX added digitized speech.
Richard Garriott disliked how games were sold in zip-lock bags with minimal printed instructions. He insisted Ultima II be sold in a box with a cloth map and a proper manual. Sierra On-Line was the only company at that time willing to agree, so he signed with them for that release. From Ultima II onward, every game in the main series included a cloth map of the game world. Starting with Ultima IV, small trinkets made of metal or glass, such as pendants, coins, and magic stones, were included in the packaging. These were called "feelies" and typically represented objects found within the game.
The physical materials also served as copy protection. In the Atari 8-bit version of Ultima IV, one floppy disk contained an unformatted track; without it the player lost every fight, an effect subtle enough that the German distributor initially shipped formatted disks by mistake, turning legitimate copies into unlicensed-acting ones. Ultima V embedded plot-critical information in the accompanying booklet, including runic scripts and a journal of Lord British's expedition into the Underworld. Ultima VI introduced in-game questions that blocked progress if answered wrongly. Ultima VII Part 2: Serpent Isle replaced wrong answers with a mode where all non-player characters spoke only altered versions of famous quotes and everything was labeled "Oink!" Copy protection questions were dropped entirely from Ultima VIII onward.
In Japan, the series performed strongly. Pony Canyon's Japanese versions had sold nearly 100,000 copies on home computers and over 300,000 units on the Famicom by 1990. Console adaptations for the NES, Master System, Super NES, and Game Boy reached audiences that the PC versions had not. Tie-in products included manga, a soundtrack CD, two kinds of wrist watches, a tape dispenser, a pencil holder, a board game, a jacket, and a beach towel.
Ultima Online launched in 1997 as an unexpected success, becoming one of the earliest and longest-running successful massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Its lore cleverly retconned Ultima I: when the Stranger shattered the Gem of Immortality, each shard contained a miniature version of Britannia, and player characters exist on those shards. Eight expansion packs followed over the years. The aging graphics engine was renewed in 2007 with the official Kingdom Reborn client.
Two Ultima Online sequels were canceled: Ultima Worlds Online: Origin in 2001 and Ultima X: Odyssey in 2004. Ultima X was developed without Garriott's participation; he no longer owns the rights to the Ultima series, though he retains rights to several characters. Neither Garriott nor Electronic Arts can produce a new Ultima title without the other's permission. On the 30th of June 2020, Garriott said EA had turned him down for any attempt to revive or remaster the series.
The Worlds of Ultima spin-off series used the Ultima VI engine for two games: The Savage Empire in 1990 and Martian Dreams in 1991. A third entry set in Arthurian legend was canceled in 1993. The Ultima Underworld series took a first-person perspective beginning with The Stygian Abyss in 1992. A third Underworld game, Underworld Ascendant, released in 2018, licensed the lore but was not permitted to use the Ultima brand name.
Ultima III is widely credited as the first modern computer role-playing game and directly influenced Dragon Quest and the RPG Excalibur. Garriott's own successor project, Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues, launched a Kickstarter campaign on the 8th of March 2013 through his company Portalarium. The first of five planned episodes was released on the 27th of March 2018, to mixed reception; further episodes had not yet followed at the time of writing.
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Common questions
Who created the Ultima series of video games?
Richard Garriott created the Ultima series through his company Origin Systems. Electronic Arts has owned the Ultima brand since 1992, though Garriott retains rights to several characters including Lord British.
How many games are in the main Ultima series?
The main Ultima series consists of nine installments grouped into three trilogies: The Age of Darkness (Ultima I-III), The Age of Enlightenment (Ultima IV-VI), and The Age of Armageddon (Ultima VII-IX). Ultima VII was split into two parts, bringing the total release count to ten.
What are the Eight Virtues in Ultima IV and where did they come from?
The Eight Virtues in Ultima IV are Honesty, Compassion, Valor, Justice, Sacrifice, Honor, Spirituality, and Humility. Richard Garriott drew inspiration from Hinduism's sixteen ways of purification (sanskara) and character traits (samskara), as well as characters from The Wizard of Oz mapped to the Three Principles of Truth, Love, and Courage.
How many copies has the Ultima series sold?
The Ultima series had sold over two million copies by 1997. In Japan alone, Pony Canyon's versions reached nearly 100,000 copies on home computers and over 300,000 units on the Famicom by 1990.
What is Ultima Online and when did it launch?
Ultima Online is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game spin-off of the main Ultima series, launched in 1997. It became one of the earliest and longest-running successful MMORPGs and received eight expansion packs over its lifespan.
Why can't Richard Garriott make a new Ultima game?
Garriott no longer owns the rights to the Ultima series, which Electronic Arts has held since 1992. He does retain rights to several game characters, meaning neither he nor EA can produce a new Ultima title without permission from the other. On the 30th of June 2020, Garriott stated that EA had turned him down for attempts to revive or remaster the series.