Back in the 80s and 90s, one of the biggest marketing tools for any video game was the artwork splashed across the front cover. Origin Systems certainly had a had a number of quality releases over the years, and back in their heyday their games were ported to numerous different platforms and adapted for different audiences. While the quality of these ports varied from dismal to excellent, it was almost always the case that the game’s cover art ranked among the best examples of the form. Even Ultima 7’s stark black box is an artistic treasure in its own right, not to mention expectation-subverting.

Some time ago, I posed the possibility of creating an archive of high-quality scans of the various game covers. Today, I am proud to present 16 high quality scans of the cover art for various Origin Systems titles.

It is at present a sadly incomplete selection of high quality scans from some of the many Ultima titles and ports (as well as a few other games produced by Origin). The list will increase dramatically as more high-quality scans become available, and submissions are of course always accepted. These images range in quality from 600 to 1200 dpi, and were taken using a variety of different scanners and scanning techniques. Few of these originals were perfect, and there are some noticeable dust, wear, and scanning artifacts which I have endeavored to erase. I have also refused to use scans that contain large stickers or physical damage that may obscure any of the original artwork. Feel free to download these images (links are provided), and enjoy the spectacular artwork.

And if you’d like to discuss the image archive, or submit previews of cover scans of your own creation, visit this thread in the Sword & Shield forum.