Ultima 7: The Black Gate was a revolutionary game for its time, and remains playable to this day…at least for those who have some familiarity with games from the early 1990s. But equally, the game is not without its issues: the framerate is staggeringly — literally, characters seem to stagger on-screen — low, the combat engine is a joke, and the palette shifts that are used for the day/night cycle render the game’s UI almost unusable at night.

Which is why Anthony Salter — the developer of the Geist game engine — has embarked upon an effort to build a “replacement engine for Ultima VII” that will “present the world of Britannia in a 3D engine, using a more modern (but not too modern) presentation.” Salter’s goal is to “[smooth] off some of the rough corners, like the inventory and combat systems” from the original Ultima 7, in order to “create a new way of playing Ultima VII that will allow [modern gamers] to understand exactly why Ultima VII is so amazing.”

There is a brand new project entry for U7 Revisited here at the Codex. However, if you want to download and try it for yourself, you’ll have to visit the downloads page on the project website and follow the build instructions there.