Back in the late 1900s and early 2000s, Scorched.com was a great site to hit up for the latest and greatest news, buzz, and advance information about the hottest upcoming games. Which, naturally, included later Origin Systems titles like Wing Commander Prophecy and Ultima 9. Chris “Mental4” Bailey maintained the Ultima 9 section, and with assistance from Bob White, Lord Pall, Sith Dragon, and Dan Rubenfield, he created a pretty cool archive of preview images for Ascension. Some of the images were taken from the March 1998 issue of Next Generation magazine, while others were provided by the various people mentioned previously.

These days, Scorched.com is no more, but you can view a glimpse of the Ultima 9 page thanks to the Wayback Machine. Some of the images archived there are lost to time, but those that could be saved are presented here, with captions matching those in place on the original page as of early 1998.

Many thanks to Deckard for bringing this to my attention!