New Project: Ultima Obscura
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This is an interesting-looking project, though still in the conceptual stage. It bills itself as “complete and total re-imagining of the entire linear canonical Ultima series with a dark gothic sort of twist” featuring a Sosaria that is “much darker than any you’ve come to know and [which] shares a completely different history. Things go bump in the night and all is not as it seems. The people and places will seem familiar but the similarity ends there.”
So in a sense, it intends to be a remake of the entire Ultima series, probably one game at a time.
Various and sundry other details can be gleaned from its FAQ page, so it is known that the developer intends to use a custom-built 2D game engine, featuring Ultima 6– or Ultima 7-style dungeons, with a world approximately three times the size of Ultima 6’s. (The world map has been expanded to include Serpent Isle and Morgaelin.)
I’ve added a project entry for it, premature though that step may be. Hopefully we’ll see more news about this one in the near future!
Looks good. I don’t know why Richard Garriot does not buy back the rights for the Ultima Series. Surely he has enough money? Maybe he has lost faith in the Avatar?
That is a question that comes up very often and only he will know the answer to it.
I think there must be something else to it. Can’t be just a matter of money. Something deeper 😀
My vote is that it really is just a matter of money.
Hum, one thing to keep in mind: to buy back a license the IP Holders must also be willing to SELL it.
As it turns out it seems extremly unlikely that EA would want to sell the Ultima IP to anyone : UO is still going on and making money, they have a new UO being worked on for the asian market and we’ve all heard those rumor about this supposed Bioware Mythic facebook game. Why would EA want to sell Ultima in these conditions ? It’s not like they are in desperate need of money.
I could picture EA selling some of their unused IP like Crusader, or Wing Commander, or System Shock, or Dungeon Keeper, or whatever (they have a lot of those) is the money is right.
But Ultima ?
Not gonna happen.
As for Ultima Obscura it sound like an interesting premise so I look forward to what they will come up with 🙂
Firstly, while it is true that Richard Garriott is quite happily wealthy, I would wonder at whether he is sufficiently rich as to be able to purchase the Ultima IP back from EA…especially when you consider that no small amount of Lord British’ funds are probably tied up in his “private astronaut” endeavours.
And even if he did have the cash…would EA be interested in selling? Both sides have to be interested in playing ball.
A more interesting question to ask might be why Richard Garriott hasn’t made any attempts to return to Ultima. Why, instead of arranging a partnership or deal of some sort with EA to make a new single-player Ultima title in conjunction with one of EA’s high-powered studios (especially now that EA’s development policies have turned around are are now much in favour of letting developers take a little longer to make sure the game is done right), has he opted to co-found a social gaming studio?
Zygon Dragon asks if Lord British has “lost faith in the Avatar?” I would answer that Richard Garriott killed off the Avatar in the last single-player Ultima title to be released; in his original version of the plot, Lord British was also supposed to die. And Britannia was supposed to be destroyed.
None of this is to deny, mind you, that money is a factor; it probably is. But it is to say that money aside, there are probably also very deeply personal reasons why Richard Garriott hasn’t returned to Ultima. With Ultima 9, he had positioned himself to move into what could be called a post-Avatar, post-Lord British, and maybe even post-Britannian frame of mind.
Arguably, he had begun to move on from Ultima back in 1997. Perhaps that’s the main reason he hasn’t returned to it at any time since.
I’m with Kenneth. Even IF EA was willing to sell the Ultima IP AND IF LB had the money on hand to buy it, LB has done all he wanted to do with Ultima anyway.
Well actually Richard Garriott did say a couple of years ago that he’d love to return to Ultima and had even discussed for fun with some other formers OSI employee what a new Ultima could be – but that it was not likely to happen (for obvious reason).
Also even if EA has changed since the OSI days, I’m not sure he would be willing to get back to work for them. The fact that he went on and built Portalarium with formers OSI alumnees also tend to point that he’s had enough with the big coorporate development he suffered at both EA and NC Soft and wants a more independant approach for his future endeavours.
and honestly even though Ultima must hold a significant value in his heart, he let it go years ago. Who wants to go back to the same old thing again and again and again (well, we are talking things not wife… :))?
Going back to Ultima might really feel like admitting defeat, that he is no good in other games besides Ultima… (though *I* sometimes tend to think that)…
And EA would surely not easily sel off the Ultima IP as long as UO is still running. For them to sell it the offer must be *very* high and they’d still need to cover their asses to not produce a problem with their UO stuff.
If any arrangement were struck regarding Ultima’s IP, I can only imagine that it would be more of a licensing or partnership arrangement rather than an outright sale. That would solve the problem of maintaining UO, but also let another developer make something for the property. Then again, EA could just as easily hand off an Ultima project to one of their studios, so…we’re back to the whole “we have a buyer, but do we have a seller?” conundrum.
Sergorn does raise a point and does correct me regarding Richard Garriott’s stance on the series, though I think it’s important to make a categorical distinction here. Even if the announcement came tomorrow that Richard Garriott and…say…BioWare were partnering to release a new Ultima game, the Ultima game that would emerge would be a very different beast than that with which we are familiar. I would very much doubt it would incorporate the Avatar as a character, I would very much doubt Lord British would play a key role in the title, and I am not even entirely sure that it would be set in Britannia.
All of which is to say: what we here mean by the term “Ultima” and what Richard Garriott means by the term “Ultima” may not be the same thing. In fact, I’d bet good money they aren’t…if I were one to gamble, you understand.
“If any arrangement were struck regarding Ultima’s IP, I can only imagine that it would be more of a licensing or partnership arrangement rather than an outright sale.”
Exactly.
This is actually what they tried to do a few years back before they bought Bioware – they wanted to craft a new Ultima CRPG but since EA had no RPG studio, they shipped the Ultima IP to all the big RPG studios around (I assume that means Bioware, Bethesda, Obsidian… :P) but negociations fell through (through to which one, who knows ?).
But with Bioware now within EA, would they want to ship the IP somewhere else ? On the other hand, since Bioware has its own set of IP, would they want to “waste” Bioware with Ultima ?
I figure the only hope for something like this to happen would be for some independant company to approach EA with a Ultima concept taht they feel strong enough to fund, but that seems unlikely to me in any case.
I guess our hopes rest with Mythic