Now this is how you bid farewell to the year gone by!

The announcement of this remake also serves, in a way, as the cancellation notice for Thepal’s previous Ultima remake attempt, Infinity Eternal. Serpent Isle is, as the name would imply, a more-or-less straight-up remake of Ultima 7 Part 2: Serpent Isle, and uses the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion engine. Thepal has chosen to remake Serpent Isle and bring its magic into a 3D world in an attempt to bring the many memorable moments and elements of the original game to life in a way Ultima fans have never seen before.

Thepal has elected to create Serpent Isle as “an almost 1:1 remake of the original game. The original dialogue, quests, locations, furniture…pretty much everything [will be] identical.” A direct remake also means — or hopefully means — that he can create the mod faster than a more innovative retelling would require. He notes that “[d]ialogue for a town takes a week instead of…well… closer to a year for previous remakes. Of course, dialogue still seems to be the most time consuming part of the mod, but has been made easier due to a scripted Ultima-like dialogue system that has been incorporated into the original Oblivion dialogue system.”

His expected release date is still the obligatory “when it’s done”, although he rang in the end of 2010 with a release of a 100 MB demo, available here for download, and expects to have much more to show within 2011. And if the project’s rudimentary blog is any indication, he’s making excellent progress. Be sure to also keep an eye on Thepal’s YouTube channel, which features test and gameplay footage from the project.