Well, now we know what the Lord British Presents website was counting down to. Richard Garriott and Portalarium have announced this morning that Lord British will be returning to his RPG gaming roots with Shroud of the Avatar, a new series of PC games being developed with the Unity engine that has been so popular with Kickstarted RPG projects of late.

Here’s the livestream, from Rooster Teeth:

The First Age of Update: And since that’s done, here’s the Kickstarter pitch video:

Moreover, a Kickstarter campaign for the first episode in the Shroud of the Avatar series, entitled Forsaken Virtues, has gone live…and yes, a cloth map is part of the reward scheme for the campaign. There’s also a dedicated Shroud of the Avatar website!

Here’s the info sheet that the Ultima Codex was provided by David Swofford, Portalarium’s PR man:

Legendary and award winning game designer Richard Garriott returns to his fantasy RPG roots with Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues. Shroud of the Avatar is the first installment of Garriott’s new vision of role playing games and represents the reinvention of the classic, fantasy RPG, which he pioneered in the early 1980s with the classic Ultima series of games.

Using state-of-the-art tools and technology, the game will focus on what made his seminal Ultima series great. Players will be introduced to the game, but then discover their own story. There is an overarching story woven into the player experience, and players may choose to follow the life of the adventurer or, if they prefer, focus on exploration and discovery. Players may even choose the life of a homesteader, either safely within the settled lands or on the dangerous but potentially lucrative frontier. The world is full of opportunities and challenges!

From familiar psychological profiling used to create your character to organically derived game response to player behavior, fundamental virtues and consequence of actions play a huge role in Shroud of the Avatar. Players will be free to choose their path, but must then live with the consequences of their actions.

Features

• Legendary game designer and creator of the Ultima series of games, Richard Garriott makes his triumphant return to fantasy RPG games
• Fully interactive virtual world
• Richard Garriott hallmarks: character system without classes, virtue system and player actions that have consequences
• Player housing
• Crafting system that avoids busy work; craft as a hobby or as a career
• Meaningful PvP that also minimizes griefing
• Scene-based encounters – replayable scenes that may be played solo or shared with others
• A Kickstarter campaign to raise funding directly from the people who want to play the game and give input on its features and design

Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues
From – Portalarium
Release date – TBD
Platform – Digital download to PC
Play Mode – Solo with multiplayer options
Distribution – Digital (service/partner TBA)
Website – http://www.shroudoftheavatar.com

We’ve set up a new Shroud of the Avatar subdomain to serve as a portal for news about the game. Over the next little while, we’ll be publishing all manner of content there that was supplied to us by Portalarium, so do keep checking in!

First it was Chris Roberts, and now Richard Garriott has returned to his PC gaming roots, with a multi-episode game that will finally feed that hunger that Ultima fans have been feeling for the last decade or two. Exciting times!