Ultima 4 Recognized By The Video Game Writers As One Of The Best Sequels Ever
Twitter user Kristen Maxell tweeted the link to this article using the #UDIC hashtag (which I encourage all of you who happen to be on Twitter to make use of!). It’s a write-up by The Video Game Writers listing six video game sequels that “got it right”…and of course, Ultima 4 is on the list.
Role playing games had a bad rep in the 80s. Thanks to some religious fanatics and a media hungry for controversy, these games were linked in the public’s mind to death metal, satan worshipping, drug use, suicide, and murder. Responding to criticism of his previous Ultima titles promoting demon worship, Richard “Lord British” Garriott came up with a novel idea: a morality system by which the player would be judged for her character’s actions.
Instead of a “kill the big monster at the end of the dungeon” scenario, the player was tasked with proving themselves to be the master of 8 virtues to become the Avatar, a true hero to unite the people of Britannia. The concept of philosophy was finally brought into the game design process, expertly presented as symbolic correspondences of colors, images, characters, locations, and deeds that brought a much deeper meaning to the action than simply murdering one’s way to victory. This radical shift in gameplay truly set the game apart from its simplistic and often silly predecessors, and broadened the palette of what games could be about.
I could take issue with their explanations for the impetus behind the shift in tone in the Ultima series (in interviews, Garriott usually mentions correspondence from “concerned parents” who had questions about the hack-and-slash nature of the first three titles), but there’s no debating the conclusion. Ultima 4 is, in many respects, the second “first game” in the Ultima series; you really can start playing through the series from that point and miss next to nothing important about its lore.
And it did in fact up-end RPG gaming. Hack-and-slash titles still exist, but there has been almost continuous evolution in morality systems in games since Ultima 4 and the titles in the series that followed it.
Not that I’ve had a Vulcan mind meld with Garriott, but I imagine the ridiculous outrage expressed by the ignorant zealots at the time may have been the trigger that gave him the idea. I don’t think he did it as a direct response, but rather because his clever mind turned idiocy into genius.
Further evidence to support the lack of a direct link was his comments about the subtitle and cover artwork of Ultima VIII, which he stated in so many words was done to spite the “D&D is devil worship” crowd. That was his middle finger to them, basically.
I’m sure it’s been said a million times, but I can certainly say that Ultima IV had a profound effect on me in my youth. And, from what I’ve read in interviews with LB, this was part of his goal. I found myself being a better person in day to day interactions.
In middle school, possibly even earlier, I found an ankh at a jewelry store and call me nerdy if you will, but it still hangs around my neck to this day a decade and a half later.
Glad to hear that Rustic. It affected me too. I had been losing faith in the usual BS I saw swirling around me and it gave me something solid to hold on to. Kinda scary, really, but at least we didn’t turn out as homicidal fanatics cutting heads and yelling nonsensically about this and that. For me it separated the logic of ethics from arbitrary dogma, which guides me to this day.
Hack-and-slash titles still exist, but there has been almost continuous evolution in morality systems in games since Ultima 4 and the titles in the series that followed it.
I’ll be the contrarian here and point out that contemporary “morality systems” in games are probably inspired more by D&D’s alignment system than by Ultima 4.
I see Ultima IV as the ‘original’, and Ultima V as the best sequel to follow it.
I actually agree with Infinitron for once, you don’t really see the kind of karma system Ultima sported in games nowadays, and the kind of morality choices done through dialogues that is common in today’s game basically didn’t existed in Ultima IV, or even most Ultima.
Ultima 4 impacted me me pretty heavily in my youth as well, for a lot of the same reasons stated above. Suffering from disillusion with my parents philosophy and religion, Ultima 4 opened my eyes to the idea that there could be another way to find morality. Not one from authority, but one from personal responsibility, actions, and the way we treat others. It was truly an enlightening experience. It made me think about what it was to be a hero. A true hero. Not someone who slays monsters, but someone who does the right thing, and is a good person. Frankly, it made me a better person than I would have been otherwise. It was just a game, obviously, and I know that, but it made me think about right and wrong, and brought me to find my own morality.
Hey guys, thanks for commenting on the article.
What has rally struck me is the responses about how you had your personal ethics affected by U4. I grew up in a very fundamentalist town and had up to that point not found anything philosophical that i could agree with, and then suddenly here’s a video game that presents me with a non-supernatural model for being a good person. I took the virtues and principles to hear and to this day consider them the foundation of my philosophy.
It’s great to hear that I am not the only one.
We’ve had this discussion a couple times, in fact!
My own story is a bit different than the common thread here — I found parallels between the Eight Virtues and the virtues taught by the Catholic Church, but also found the Eight Virtues to have a lot of internal conflict that turned me off from using them as any sort of ethical compass — but it is certainly true (almost universally so) that most Ultima fans have been impacted by the series at a moral level.
The way I look at it, that internal conflict reveals the inherent paradox of absolute virtue. The questions the gypsy asks are a series of examples of the conflicts that can arise. I like the idea that being virtuous is a constant struggle, not just with your primitive instincts, but in determining the best application of the principles to everyday choices you’re faced with. There’s no right answer, but there is usually a better answer. Virtue “A” versus virtue “B” will have a different winner and loser based on the specific situation and persons involved.
Right and wrong is never as simple as “do this” and “don’t do that”, so that conflict is perhaps a lesson for us.
Except that the aforementioned Catholic virtues, to which I cleave, do not display that same internal conflict, despite their absoluteness. They are, instead, mutually reinforcing*, interwoven and linked by that which is the greatest of their number: caritas (love).
* Which I would argue is the whole point of virtue, which I would argue can be defined as to live and act in accordance with whatsoever things are true. Truth does not contradict truth, and so virtue — lived truth — should not contradict virtue…and if it do, then how can we label it virtuous?
What are the Catholic virtues? I’m eager to dissect them and expose the conflict. 😉
Truth is a hell of a subject, as it is neither good nor bad. It’s like a knife; you could cut someone’s seatbelt to free them from a burning car or you could skin someone alive for your amusement.
Also what’s the relationship between love and truth (if there is one)?
One could argue that doing whatever you are physically able to is acting in truth, because the laws of physics and the universe allow it. An asteroid hitting the planet and causing mass extinction is truth, but it isn’t virtuous, it’s just physics.
The Catholic virtues subdivide into two categories: the cardinal virtues and the theological virtues. I’m just going to rip the definitions for each right out of the Catechism.
The cardinal virtues, numbering four, are:
Fundamentally, living in accordance with each of these virtues can be seen as living in a manner that demonstrates love for oneself and for others (we could maybe expand that statement by subdividing “love” into the three categories that the ancient Greek language put forth: filial love, erotic love, and agapic love). Equally, living in violation of each virtue can be seen as a failure to demonstrate love for oneself and/or others.
Temperance can be our example here. An obvious violation against temperance is gluttony — over-consumption and hoarding of goods and consumables for ourselves, to the deprivation of others. The opposite violation against temperance is embodied in the ideals of Prohibition — the destruction and forcing upon others of total abstinence from certain things which in some particular measure are bad for them. Temperance, then, rests in the balance between the morbidly obese and the bulimic, between the whore and the spinster. And ultimately, the violations against temperance reflect both a disordered love for oneself (either too much or too little) and also a disordered love for others (either too little, or too much).
The theological virtues, numbering three, are:
The same examination as was done above can be applied here.
Faith, for example, has two opposing vices. The obvious one is the rejection and repudiation of faith (which can have many manifestations beyond just atheism and agnosticism), and the opposite one to that is what we could term zealotry, or fundamentalism. (I’ve never liked either term, because one should in fact have zeal for the things one views as important, and one should strive to grasp the fundamentals of everything one learns, believes, and takes interest in. But that is not what these terms have come to mean, sadly.) Genuine faith exists somewhere on the spectrum between the atheist and the zealot, and both violations against it can be seen as failures to love.
Because, in the end, “the greatest of these is love”, and love is the thing which unites all the virtues. If in fact the virtues seem to come into conflict, then what has probably happened is that there has been a violation of one of them that one has missed seeing.
As to the nature of truth and whether there exists anything like an objective/absolute/eternal truth, well…I don’t know about you, but I find that to be a profoundly tiresome debate, and then one which comes to no discernible good end. For me, the struggle to accept the assertion that “there exists no objective/absolute truth” (or, more generally, the statement that “truth is subjective/relative”) is that such an assertion — if it is to have any value as a description of the state and nature of truth in the world — must itself be true in all cases; it must be a tautology.
And this is my struggle: a tautological truth is, by definition, an objective/absolute truth; it is always true, in every case. But this leads us to a contradiction, since it has been previously declared that absolute truth does not exist. And yet, one must, if in fact none do…which simply cannot be; (X and NOT X) always computes to FALSE.
As to how truth and love relate, I would argue that they could almost be thought of as being the same thing; truth is love. That’s kind of a simplification of Thomistic philosophy…but it works. I’ll grant that truth isn’t always nice to hear…but it is not always the case that the loving action is the nice one.
Hey come on now death metal didnt start getting blamed for anything until the mid 90s!! 😀
U4 was the first one I ever saw. Some kid brought it in at a summer school thing I was doing and I just remember being completely blown away by the packaging and the manuals and the description on the back of the box. After that I made my parents get me an Apple IIc for xmas, and Ultima 5 was the first one I bought. After that it was all over. It was hard to locate an Ultima 4 at the time (and being like 11 I couldnt exactly drop $60 when I did find it) and it always became that holy grail of Ultimas for me. I didnt get to actually play it until 1998 or so when I bought the Ultima Collection. Even after all those years I still stayed up late and spent HOURS on that thing until I finished it. I wonder if Richard Garriot would still send me a certificate for finishing it hehe.
Interesting read WtF. The only potential problem I see is people’s tendency to interpret things like that in ways that suit them at the time. I don’t think there really are any inherent conflicts, just a lot of room for interpretation. The Ten Commandments are pretty cut and dry, these virtues swing way in the other direction. Other than the stuff about faith and God I like them.
Sanctimonia:
We call that “sin”, usually.
Actually, it’s a good point, and it’s among the reasons why the Catholic Church, contra much of Protestantism, has never taught that one’s private interpretations of Scripture or doctrine should be considered to be authoritative. Indeed, Catholicism makes a point of rendering it impossible for any one person to interpret these things in a way that will be considered binding on the Church as a whole.
It’s one of my more favourite features of the religion. 😉
Interesting. I can see why it’s popular (other than the more negative reasons). What saddens me is that people are so lost that they need a strict hand to guide them. I appreciate virtues, ethics, advice, etc., but when people flat out need to be told what the deal is, it speaks to our apparently inherent weaknesses as supposedly free thinkers.
No slight against Catholicism or any other religion, just the way people seem to need things spelled out so literally in order to know what to do (which can be dangerous). Common sense–“sense” being any decent virtue you can think of–seems to escape us so often that it’s embarrassing if not lethal.
I guess I’m just obsessed with why people are always fucking up so frequently and so horribly that it threatens the fabric of our otherwise peaceful co-existence. I’ve made mistakes, we all do, but it seems to be a common trend to make improbable series of mistakes that result in real horror on a regular basis.
Something is very wrong with us. Could be that we were meant to exist in small groups, and larger groups with their resulting “herd mentality” suppress empathy. I don’t know; I just know things are bad and history tells us there is no cure.
Religious people say that there is a cure, that it’s Jesus, the Church, following the Commandments, or what have you. What’s funny is that it’s true, even if there is no God. There are any number of reasonable philosophies and religions that could be followed and with some common sense would result in Heaven on Earth. The problem isn’t that the religions and philosophies are wrong, but that -we- are wrong. Whether through apathy or zealotry, we’re wrong so often it damages our societies.
Maybe it is as simple as a lack of empathy for those whose face you haven’t seen, whose voice you haven’t heard. Usually complex problems are reasonably simple in the correct light.