Apparently, Ultima Online received the first ever Hall of Fame award at GDC, the Game Developers Conference. To celebrate, Mythic (who are now in charge of UO) produced a celebratory little video:

Now, granted, the last couple of minutes (from about 1:02 onward) are a bit more the vein of an advertisement, although some of the player stories are interesting (others sound more frustrating than anything else).

But that first minute…just…wow.

I know that Ultima Online has been a point of controversy for many Ultima fans, and in many cases rightly so. It began as an interesting expansion on the Ultima concept, but very quickly strayed into all manner of odd departures therefrom. That said, in Mythic’s hands, it’s starting to really return to its roots, to the Britannia that we know and love.

And I think, in no small part, that’s due to Mythic’s readily evident love for the old Ultima games, which the first minute or so of the above video alludes to. It’s nothing overstated, just a few seconds of graphics and gameplay from each canonical Ultima game (and also Ultima Underworld) set to a pretty score…but it’s touching even so. It doesn’t scream “Ultima!” at top volume, and it doesn’t have to; the games speak for themselves. It just presents them, with an obvious, deep-seated respect.

(Thanks to the guys at UOGuide for the video link.)