In addition to being a year of significant progress for Shroud of the Avatar, 2014 also saw the emergence of some other Ultima/Ultima Online-inspired indie games, headed up by former Ultima and Ultima Online developers no less.

March

Around the middle of the month, a handful of developers — many of whom were formerly employed at Mythic — announced the creation of Citadel Studios. They also announced their first project, an isometric MMORPG called Shards that would afford players the ability to run their own worlds and change virtually every aspect of the game.

May

After generating some buzz, Shards Online’s first Kickstarter campaign was launched toward the middle of the month. Citadel Studios gave backers more or less unfettered access to the game during the campaign, and even held a Battle of the Backers PvP event.

June

With the Shards Online Kickstarter campaign losing steam, Citadel Studios launched an open preview of the game early in the month. Sadly, this wasn’t enough to gin up sufficient support for the campaign, which ended short of its $500,000 goal.

July

While us Canadians were celebrating Canada Day, former Looking Glass Studios head Paul Neurath announced the formation of OtherSide Entertainment, and also announced the first title said studio would be working on: Underworld Ascension, a spiritual sequel to the Ultima Underworld games. One of the studio’s first efforts at fan outreach was a survey of games that the community felt had drawn inspiration from the Underworld titles.

Paul Neurath was also interviewed by Eurogamer about Underworld Ascension, and outlined some of OtherSide’s basic plans for the game.

August

OtherSide Entertainment teased the possibility of more Underworld Ascension design details being released early in the month. To date, however, I don’t think any such details have been forthcoming. Concept art was also promised, but this too has not yet emerged.

October

Late in the month, Citadel Studios announced that they would be launching a new Kickstarter campaign for Shards Online, this time with the intent of raising just enough money to bring the game to an alpha release state.

November

The second Shards Online Kickstarter campaign began in the middle of the month, and I will admit that I was quite plesantly surprised to see just how much the look of the game had changed since its earlier crowdfunding attempt. And this time, the Kickstarter campaign was a success; Shards reached its initial funding goal in, roughly, one week.

Citadel Studios then announced a number of stretch goals, and quickly achieved two of them.

December

The Shards Online Kickstarter campaign continued to accrue funds, crossing off another three stretch goals and bringing the fundraising total to $100,000. More stretch goals were announced as the campaign entered its final week, and Citadel Studios will keep these stretch goals as goals now that the Kickstarter campaign has ended; they are taking additional pledges at the Shards Online website proper.

The Ultima Codex even interviewed Derek Brinkmann and Tim Cotten, both of Citadel Studios, just prior to the final week of the Shards Kickstarter. It was an interesting discussion that covered both men’s work on Ultima Online as well.

Oh, and as it turns out, OtherSide Entertainment did have some concept art ready to go…but they decided to hold off releasing it, feeling that it needed some additional work.

And that, Dragons and Dragonettes, is all the news that the Codex was able to print about Shards Online and Underworld Ascension — two Ultima-inspired games being worked on by former Ultima or Ultima Online developers — in 2014. Here’s hoping we’ll see much more from both projects in 2015!