Before Ultima IX: Ascension became the hardware-accelerated, over-the-shoulder third-person 3D game we eventually got in 1999, the design of the game was…rather different. Between about 1995 and 1997, Origin’s early work on the game was an isometric, Ultima VIII-style affair, and only a handful of screenshots from that period survive. They’ve been a source of wistful “what if” for fans for the better part of thirty years.

Now, a month into an unexpected side project, someone is actually building it.

That someone is Camilo DelCódigo, an aspiring indie developer whose GitHub already holds a few classic-RPG projects. These include Open Sosaria, an engine reimplementation of the original Apple II Ultima (which I’ll have to get in the news soon). At the start of October, he came across those prototype screenshots and, as he put it on X:

Saw a screenshot of the original Ultima IX prototype, back when it was still isometric, and decided to try replicating it. Not 1:1, of course, but I feel like there could have been a cool game in a top-down Ultima 8.5 engine.

The result was strikingly close to the real thing, and it got a lot more attention than he expected. “The 1995–97 Ultima IX prototype is pretty niche, even by Ultima standards,” he admitted the next day. That didn’t stop him from adding the exterior props around the house, and then a tiny Avatar to stand in it.

From there, the concept became a project. On October 6, he moved everything into the Godot engine, and his post announcing as much showcased the Avatar walking and running and the camera rotating around him. A day later, you could move the furniture around and “enjoy a nice meal outside” (though, he noted, you still couldn’t bake bread). Next came inventory: picking up, dragging, dropping and rotating objects in what he dubbed “Ultima IX: Hoarder Edition“. A week later, bags went inside other bags, and you could split stacks of gold between containers. Then doors that open, lock and unlock with keys joined the list.

A couple of days of bug squashing followed, with some help and advice from Slashing Dragon (@slashie_ on X). That stretch ended with finally baking some bread in Britannia, because of course it did. Then paperdolls arrived, giving us “Ultima IX: Quest of the Nudist” and an Avatar wearing nothing but boots and gloves while “casually carrying a sword.”

Most recently, Camilo has turned to the world itself. He’s blocking out a Britannia roughly four times the size of Ultima VII‘s, which is the scale described in interviews from the time. He’s candid that “making games is hard,” and — as of his latest update — he’s still working out how to fill all that space “with meaningful terrain, landmarks and routes without turning it into noise.” (Whether his map draws on Ultima Online‘s Britannia or is entirely his own design, I can’t be sure.)

As fond as I am of Ultima IX as it actually shipped, it’s fascinating to watch this much more detailed “what might have been” take shape, and in barely a month, no less. You can follow along on Camilo’s X account — at which he now names the project Ultima IX: Atonement — if you want to keep tabs on where this goes. I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on it!