Ultima 9: Isometric Dungeon Screenshot
So, I’ve been sitting on this image for a while, waiting for the appropriate time to release — or re-release, as the case may be — it. And what better occasion could there be than Ultima 9’s fifteenth anniversary?
This image was actually unearthed by Bandit LOAF, currently the community manager for Chris Roberts’ modest little space game, and formerly the main man at the Wing Commander CIC, and Sergorn Dragon was able to save a copy of it…which he then passed along, of course.
And now, here it is for all to see…again. I’ve also added it to the collection of isometric Ultima 9 screenshots on The Origin Gallery. This image is probably, I would guess, from after the time that Mike McShaffry had modified the enhanced Crusader engine — with which the original Ultima 9 was being built — to use 3dfx software-accelerated rendering. Whether it dates to from before or after the pause in Ultima 9’s development caused by Ultima Online, however…that, I’m not sure about.
It’s definitly NOT a 3D accelerated image. The amount of pixel makes it pretty obvious it’s software rendering so this means this definitly comes from BEFORE the team switched to Ultima Online.
It does looks good do : honestly I still think if they’d keep it as it is and added 3Dfx it would have looked gorgeous even in 1999. Aw well…
What is interesting about this picture though is that it looks like a direct screen grab of the game as it was – that seems rather obvious from the quality of it, as opposed to all the other pictures we have of the “Bob White” version of the game which are all magazine scans.
The picture only has 186 colors, which suggests the original game screen looked better than this, and it’s just the screenshot that was inexpertly color-reduced at some point.
*sheds a tear for the U9 that never was*
Well the game would likely only have been 256 colors (the only added 16 bits color depth when they added D3D, that’s why Glide only offers 256 colors mode), so perhaps this particular location just didn’t used all the color palette 😛
Based on all the other screens we’ve seen of the isometric U9, it doesn’t feel to me this was “color reduced”.
This game would have been so good, I’m sure of it. I would still buy it if it would be released that way. I had hoped that Shroud of the Avatar would become was the original Ultima IX was meant to. Unfortunately right now it seems we are getting a MMORPG whereas a true Single Player RPG would have been so much better imho…
Where have I seen that screenshot before?
Did you ever get on the short lived Ultima irc ? That’s where we first saw it a couple years ago.
This could have been cool, but I wonder how they were planning on dealing this perspective with the high walls, since is looks like about 1/3 the room is blocked by their view. Wall transparency maybe?
You were able to rotate the camera at will actually.
I remember reading the PC GAMER issue where they teased Ultima Online, they were still working on the isometric version of Ultima IX back then and there were a few screenshots, which are present in the gallery, I’d still love to play that version..
There’s something about seeing previous incarnations of games.. like Duke Nukem Forever.. I would love to be able to play the older builds they were working on.
I wonder if it would have played something like Crusader: No Remorse
http://youtu.be/rUnvNTvHMnQ?t=10m35s
I would kill to be able to play the isometric version of Ultima IX, even if we could do nothing than walk around in the world…
Someone in theory could try to build a U9 fan-made game in Exult.