Recovered Pieces From the Ultima 4: The Dawn of Virtue Soundtrack
Ultima 4: The Dawn of Virtue was a remake of Ultima 4 that was in development around the turn of the century (the Internet Archive’s copy of its Development Diary page lists entries from 2001 to 2003, although it was almost certainly in development prior to 2001). Dawn of Virtue would have used isometric graphics — in the style of Baldur’s Gate — instead of the top-down tiled presentation of the original, and Peltonen’s intention was to release the game for free on Windows and Linux.
Jaakko Peltonen was the project leader, and he also handled the design and programming of the game. Laura Campbell — Shadow of Light Dragon — was one of the main dialogue writers, and Ewan Munro — Tailrace Dragon — also contributed as a writer. Peltonen shuttered the project in…maybe 2004?…in part because he desired (and, of course, never received) official sanction for the project from EA. He also intended, if memory serves, to re-use the engine and assets for another project, although I don’t know if anything came of that.
Little remains of the project apart from some screenshots and a few snapshots of its website, but Iceblade was able to salvage some of the music that was created for the project:
It’s a pity that this project never came to fruition, although it’s good that the music (at least) could be saved.
