In the ongoing — yes, it’s still ongoing — migration of content over from Ultima Aiera — one of the more intriguing bits of content that hadn’t yet been moved over to a proper home at the Codex was this demo reel and pitch video for Ultima Online 2…but not the one you’re probably thinking of. The more commonly-known Ultima Online 2 — which was actually called Ultima Worlds Online: Origin — is the one with the Meer race, Todd McFarlane-inspired designs, and a very steampunkish industrial game world…development on which was cancelled in 2001.

However, in 2004, another Ultima Online 2 was pitched to EA by Origin Systems, apparently in a last-ditch effort to keep Origin Systems open.

This footage dates back to 2004 (you can see the proposed release date, “FY06”, in the title card of the video), and according to Ben “BanditLOAF” Lesnick from the Wing Commander CIC, it is actually something of a kit-bash of content excerpted from, among other things, the canceled Harry Potter Online and various other Ultima projects which never saw the light of day**.

What I find most striking about this video is that, whereas the previous attempt at Ultima Online 2 had a strikingly different engine and graphical feel, this second attempt — or proposed attempt — looked much more like an evolution of the Ultima Online engine into 3D space. The way the terrain is textured, the shape of the characters, the assets in use…they all look like 3D versions of what you could find whilst wandering around the countryside in Ultima Online.

An interesting historical note: this is pretty much the assassin’s bullet, the final nail in the coffin. In a way this video can be considered to represent the moment that Origin Systems died. As BanditLOAF informed me, this video was produced as part of the very last pitch that Origin delivered to EA, proposing to resurrect Ultima Online 2 and begin new development on it. Electronic Arts turned the pitch down, and Origin was closed instead. So, at least in one sense, this video is Origin’s dying breath.

And yes, this video was originally posted back in 2011; it has taken nigh on a decade for me to get around re-posting it for all to see. Many apologies for the delay!