Zygon Dragon has posted a modest update to the Ultima 6 Remake project website:

AgentOrgangeGuy has been doing quite a bit of work lately. Mostly fixing up the NW portion of the map which is almost complete, and usecode stuff. He’s fixed rivers, coastlines, and the other side of “The Long Haul” and fixed the mountains and rivers there. He’s also been working on Minoc NPCs — Juila, the Darkwatch Armory guy, the mayor are now complete with conversations and just need new portraits. Nicodemus is also fully functional. He’s also added a few random things here and there on the map, including an “outpost” outside of Yew that will be explained by a storyline from the new npc that will join your party (not yet created but his conversation file is nearly done). signs, some books, and things like that have also been fixed.

Also, the magic yew staff is functional. You are now able to buy the normal yew staves (shape created by Crowley) from Nicodemus and charge them with the Lightning spell. More spells will be added soon. When the charges run out (they hold 10), the staff changes back to a normal Yew staff that can be wielded in combat much like a normal staff.

The Avatar death function has been changed to cause you to ressurrect at the Castle. It is near functionally complete, it lacks dialogue from LB/Nystul but it both resurrects the Avatar and any dead party members nearby.

The Yew Staff is in the inventory, both a normal one and a lightning charged one. The code is slightly buggy with it right now but it shouldn’t be too hard for him to fix. It is supposed to work by double clicking the yew staff, targeting your spellbook, avatar casts the enchant spell and enchants it. Let me know if you are up for some map work sometime. We’re very close to having the NW sector of the map complete or near complete!

As is always the case, it sounds very much like the project team are making excellent progress. I will admit to being slightly…concerned at the news of some of the changes they are making, because I rather enjoy Ultima 6’s story and setting on its own, but I’m confident that the team will pull off the additions with grace and affection for Ultima lore.