Conrado Kamakura first posted news of this project to the Ultima Dragons group on Facebook back on October 24 with a teaser: Ultima VI, seen through the Avatar’s own eyes. In his words:

Sooo.. I’m working on something ;D In short, is U6 in First Person perspective. Its really early in production, and yes, I’m using AI to help me with this, as I’m no programmer and this has been something I’ve been dreaming about for years, so now I could finally do it myself.

The response was strong: more than 300 reactions and dozens of comments within the first week. Commenters mostly took the AI part in stride, with one calling it “the kind of cool stuff that AI enables someone who isn’t a developer to create.” There were also requests, of course, the first being for remappable keybinds, from at least one Dragon who is “not a WASD user.”

Less than two weeks later, the project has a proper name and a much longer feature list. In a new post this morning, Conrado introduced Ultima VI: Enhanced Edition, “formerly U6FPS,” which he describes as an independent, unofficial fan project “exploring new ways to experience Britannia while aiming to preserve Ultima VI’s world, story, progression and rules through Nuvie.”

That last part is the foundation. The project runs in the Godot engine, with Nuvie, the long-running open-source Ultima VI engine, handling the original game files, music and sound underneath. Britannia’s world and logic come straight from your own copy of Ultima VI; Godot just draws them differently.

And first-person is no longer the only way to re-experience Ultima 6. There are now four camera options: first-person, isometric, top-down, and an oblique view inspired by the original game. There are also three visual styles, and you can pick camera and style independently:

• Classic adapts the original art to the new perspectives.
• Classic+ adds selected character artwork based on the portraits.
• Modern uses more detailed pixel-art sprites and materials.

In the Modern style, town residents have their own artwork, as do the Avatar’s companions, each modelled on their original portrait. The maps are getting terrain relief, paths and riverbanks, revised buildings, furniture, doors and roofs, and optional vegetation.

Plenty of the original game already works. Conversations keep their portraits and keywords, the backpack supports dragging items around, and you can control individual party members directly. Doors, keys, castle mechanisms, dungeon transitions, raft navigation and Orb of the Moons travel have all been adapted, along with early combat and saving. And yes, the controls are remappable, so our WASD holdout can rest easy. Magic is still to come.

Conrado is careful to say that this is “a local alpha in development, with no public download yet,” and that neither the full campaign nor performance across the whole world has been tested. But for a project that started as a “Sooo.. I’m working on something” a fortnight ago, that’s a lot of ground covered. More images and updates are on Kamakura Game Works‘ website, and he’d like to know which view and visual style you’d choose for a return to Britannia. You can also check out the project entry for Enhanced Edition here at the Codex for a few of the same screenshots.