O for Obfuscate is a relatively new podcast, currently on its sixth episode. The podcast’s tagline is: “Making Pop Culture Less Clear,” and so far they’ve covered topics such as wrestling, Rockabilly, the World Cup, and Casablanca. In their latest episode (as of this writing), they invited Twitch streamer Majuular (whose Ultima streams some of you may have watched) to discuss Origin Systems and the legacy of the Ultima games.

In what might turn out to be Video Game Month, I’m happy to welcome the video game streamer/content creator Majuular (@majuular) to the show for some classic video game chat.

I first found his channel because of his video essay series on Origin Systems’ Ultima game series from the 1980s and 1990s. Ultima IV was one of my favorite games as a teenager, so really enjoyed his video on that game and Ultima V (which I also played back in the day).

We discuss how young Richard Garriot (aka Lord British) created his first game Akalabeth while still in high school, which was the precursor to the Ultima series and how Origin Systems came to be as a company. Although we discuss many of the games, we mainly talk about Ultima IV and V and how atypical they were for role playing games at the time, be they video game or table top, and probably still are to this day. We also discuss some of the later games and spin-offs, other games published by Origin, what you could call the “coaching tree” of people who started there who went on to make landmark games in the industry. There’s also talk about their complicated publishing history and is there any future for the Ultima brand with it being owned currently by Electronic Arts?

Click on through to give the episode a listen!

(Hat tip: Mark Coale)