So this is an interesting week, at least in terms of release dates for Ultima games. Both Ultima 2 and Ultima 3 were released in late August; Ultima 2 is 33 years old, and Ultima 3 is 32 years old:

#Anniversary #U2 #Aug24 @ultimaaiera @RichardGarriott @UOHerald @UltimaCodex @EA @Inside_EA @GOGcom @UltimaForever

— Soryu Dragon (@SoryuDragon) August 21, 2015

#Anniversary #U3 #Aug23 @ultimaaiera @RichardGarriott @UOHerald @UltimaCodex @EA @Inside_EA @GOGcom @UltimaForever

— Soryu Dragon (@SoryuDragon) August 21, 2015

It’s actually Ultima 2’s anniversary today; Ultima 3’s was yesterday. (Big thanks, as always, to Soryu Dragon for the reminders.)

These two games represented what was still one of the biggest transitions for the Ultima series and the people who worked on it. Ultima 2 was published by Sierra On-Line, and it was their handling of its release (along with other factors that soured Richard Garriott’s relationship with them) that led Garriott to found Origin Systems, the company we all know and love which went on to produce the rest of the Ultima series. (The Digital Antiquarian has a great post up that looks at just what happened between Richard Garriott and Sierra, if you’re curious.)