Richard Garriott, EA, and Paul Barnett

Over at UO Journal, Deckard quotes from an interview with Richard Garriott (which is here; I forgot that Deckard sometimes puts links as footnotes) in which he admits that he’d still be open to the possibility of collaborating with EA on new adventures in the Ultima series and universe.

“I find the use of the word Ultima to be more interesting as they’ve tried to give that legs again. I hope that Ultima does survive forever, yet I also, of course, have my own very particular ideas for what Ultima can and should become over time and so we’ll see if they do things quite the way I would do them…since I’m not there at the moment,” he commented.

IndustryGamers asked Garriott if he could still collaborate with EA. “We would be open to that. In fact, we’ve had some discussions at what I’ll call very high levels, but the individuals who are currently shepherding the property don’t seem to be particularly interested in that, so we’’l see,” he replied. “Who knows? You never know what’s going to happen in the future…the doors always open if they were ever interested.”

It would seem that Lord British’s heart is never far from his beloved Britannia. I get the sense that there is more to the story than just what is captured in the interview above (in which, Deckard asserts, Garriott also expressed amusement at EA’s use of the name Origin for its updated storefront and download service). And who knows? Maybe we will see a collaboration at some point between Garriott and EA, and maybe an Ultima title will result from that. Time will tell.

Deckard also notes that the people currently “shepherding” the Ultima property are the folks at BioWare Mythic, and he notes that Paul Barnett (who should be no stranger to regular readers of the site) has been tweeting about his much-discussed “secret project” again of late.

Here is his most recent tweet:

However, since early August, he has also posted several other things, concerning old Origin Systems titles, Good Old Games, and the rumoured project. Here’s a tweet from August 6th:

…and another from August 11th:

So, the project is obviously still in the works, and is being shown to an ever-increasing number of people. That’s a good sign, and it would seem that reactions to it are generally positive (an even better sign).

After a week or so of relative silence on the matter, Barnett then tweeted this on August 23rd:

…which, in hindsight, rather obviously foretold the release of Wing Commander 1 & 2 on Good Old Games, news of which broke on August 25th:

And here’s a second tweet from the 25th:

Of course, there was a bit of an issue with the Wing Commander releases: where were the addons? Also from the 25th:

…and then from PAX on the 26th:

Most recently…or, rather, just prior to the tweet that led off this set, Barnett also tweeted again about the secret project, which was evidently getting a showing in London:

All in all, there are interesting things afoot! Someone who is known to be associated closely to the Ultima franchise, by rumour and self-identification alike, continues tweeting about old Origin Systems classics and secret projects, while the creator of the Ultima series discusses his interest in returning to the franchise and lets slip that its current shepherds have plans of their own for it.

Pace the “double rainbow” guy, we can only ask: what does it mean? And then, we can hunker down and wait.

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