GitHub user TeaRex73 posted a surprising news update on the Ultima Dragons Facebook group today:

The German translation of Ultima IV – which is based on xu4 with many many changes, tries to look and sound like the original Apple II version, runs on Windows 7 or higher, and includes the full documentation – that I worked on on-and-off during the last 12 years is now on Github in time for the game’s 40th anniversary. https://github.com/TeaRex73/xu4-deutsch has it.

It does not include any files from the original game but will automatically download them on the first start, thus no need for you to hunt them down manually.

A first Alpha release is available for download there, just click on “Releases” on the right side. If you like Ultima and speak German please give it a try. I’m happy for any feedback, including bug reports.

I’m always amused when things like this happen; someone just casually drops news about a project they’ve been working on — sometimes for weeks, sometimes for years — that they are now choosing to make available. And rather than just present a concept, they drop a ready-to-download build of their project for all and sundry to try out.

So it goes here; TeaRex73 has made two different builds of this translation of xu4 available: a 32-bit build for older Windows installations, and a 64-bit build for more modern systems. You can find both at the project’s GitHub page, and links can also be found on the shiny new project entry here at the Codex.