Peter Tieryas — author of Watering Heaven (2012) and Bald New World (2014), and currently a Lead Character Technical Director at Sony Pictures Imageworks — has put together a lengthy post at the official TOR blog which looks at Ultima 4. In particular, his post focuses on the fact that the game does not have a main villain to defeat, but instead requires the player to self-examine through the lens of the Eight Virtues.

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (QOTA) is an open world RPG in which the main goal is to be a good person. There’s no archvillain to defeat (Mondain, Minax, and Exodus have already been vanquished), no world that needs saving, not even a prince or princess to rescue. This was unlike any of the RPGs of the time, a narrative device that even now seems revolutionary. I can’t imagine a book, film, or TV series without a principal foe—what would the story arc even be like? In QOTA, you help people, meditate, explore Britannia, and focus on self-enlightenment.

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After the world is unified by Lord British, he’s concerned about the spiritual welfare of his people. He wants someone to step forward, be a paragon of virtues to guide their daily lives, and descend into the Stygian Abyss to learn the ultimate meaning of life through the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom. That’s where you enter.

The path to becoming an avatar was split up into eight separate virtues, and in keeping with the open nature and loose structure of the game, I’ll explore each of them individually, examining what they meant for me.

Tieryas even cites the Ultima Codex — specifically, our interview with Richard Garriott — when discussing the Virtue of Honor:

In contrast to the Grand Theft Auto games, which are a brilliant canvas for destruction and villainy, QOTA was a sandbox devoted to morality and character development. Garriott stated in an interview with the Ultima Codex that:

“What makes an Ultima an Ultima was not the individual, specific character, the name of an NPC, or the name of the game. What made an Ultima anUltima was the detailed storycrafting, and the care to create those backstories, and the care to create socially relevant events to you, and to do that psychoanalysis of you during gameplay.”

Tieryas’ article makes for a pretty interesting read; I’d definitely recommend reading the whole thing. He offers some fairly insightful commentary on each of the Eight Virtues in turn, and it’s quite clear that he has a particular fondness for Ultima 4…and, in particular, the NES port of the game.