On the Ultima Forever forums, news has been posted concerning the game’s support for iOS 7, the upcoming update to Apple’s mobile operating system slated for release next week.

With the pending iOS 7 launch next week, there are a few important things that we want to make sure our players are aware of, regarding Ultima Forever.

First things, first (since a few of you have specifically asked): the game IS compatible with iOS 7! We’ve actually integrated compatibility prior to iOS 7 going live, and it is supported in the game’s current build.

That said, there are definitely some important things to note:

Guest Account accessibility is currently disabled (in iOS 7) in the CURRENT build of Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar (this really only affects those of you who currently have Developer access to iOS 7). When iOS 7 is released next week, we will re-enable Guest Account accessibility in Ultima Forever. What this means is:

If you are currently using iOS 6, and playing the current build: when you upgrade to iOS 7, your guest account should be fine.
If you are currently using iOS 6, patch to the new game build, and THEN upgrade to iOS 7, your guest account should be fine.
If the game is un-installed, and there are no EA games present on your device, your guest account will be lost, including characters/items/purchases)! [this is actually independent of anything having to do with upgrading to iOS 7, btw]

But wait…there’s more:

One new feature being implemented with our new content update later this month is the addition of Game Center integration. This may be a viable alternative for those players without Facebook accounts (or who choose not to play via Facebook login).

We cannot stress strongly enough that Guest accounts are NOT consistent across devices and installs. We highly recommend using Facebook login to ensure that progress and/or purchases are not lost if you need to change devices, or need to reinstall the game and are currently using Guest accounts. Alternatively, once our new update goes live, players using Guest account access can enable Game Center and use it with the new version.

Apple’s Game Center will also likely add features like leaderboards, and may even provide an alternative framework within which friends playing Ultima Forever can be located and noted in-game. (I’m speculating a bit here, but these are features that Game Center purports to offer to games in general, so it would make sense for U4E to take advantage of them.)