Ultima Forever News Roundup: Post-Trailer Edition
Since the release of the Ultima Forever trailer last week, online media outlets focused on gaming and on mobile devices have been abuzz with commentary on the game, its announced release platform(s), and of course the new trailer.
PocketGamer: Hands-on with Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar
The game certainly looks like Ultima, and the usual Ultima trapping like Tarot cards and virtues are all present, but something about it just feels off.
No doubt this is because Ultima’s creator, Richard Garriott, was not involved in the free-to-play RPG and neither is Lord British for that matter. He’s apparently followed the pope’s example and retired, leaving his daughter, Lady British, in control of the Kingdom.
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Like many previous Ultima titles, this system monitors your decisions carefully and bleeds over to the combat portion of the game as well. If you’re leading a raid and don’t divvy up the loot to your other teammates fairly, your honesty rating will suffer as a result.
Unfortunately, you’re lead by the nose to many of these decisions as the first option in text dialog is almost always the “right” choice and selecting it will speed you through game’s lore.
Those looking to delve a bit deeper into the realm of Ultima can click on other choices, but players looking to raid first and read later can skate through most conversations by tapping the top choice.
I should comment, as one who has played the game as well, that PocketGamer’s assessment of, especially, how the Virtues are implemented in the game is not…wholly accurate. (Nor are they entirely correct about every previous Ultima carefully tracking your progress in each Virtue. It was true that Ultima 4 did, and did so in spades…but most of the later Ultimas did not. Karma, similarly, had a negligible impact in many of these.) I can’t really go into significant details, NDAs being what the are, but…suffice it to say that I got tripped up on at least one Virtue quandry (that quest ended badly), and found myself having to pause to muse over a range of equally good choices in other quandries. The choices that Ultima Forever throws your way aren’t quite as cookie-cutter as PocketGamer asserts.
Polygon: Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar hits iOS soon, Android version in the works
Free-to-play. Spiritual successor. Homage.
These are not the sorts of things I like to hear bandied about when someone is showing off a new Ultima game. But that’s exactly what Ultima Forever: Quest of the Avatar is: A free-to-play spiritual successor to Ultima 4 that is mean to be an homage to the beloved role-playing game franchise.
In the game, set to be released “soon” for free on iOS, players drop into a Britannia 21 years after the events of Ultima 4 and are sent on a mission by Lady British, daughter of the now-retired Lord British. (The game features Lady and not Lord most likely because franchise creator Richard Garriot retains the trademarks to the Lord British character.) The land is under attack by the Black Weep plague and Lady Britannia needs your help.
While the game has you working to solve the riddle of the Weep, players will still try to master the eight virtues of Ultima to become the avatar.
Polygon also discusses the monetization scheme of the game, which involves keys to chests:
Keys are used to unlock loot chests, the better your key, they better your loot. The free bronze keys unlock regular loot, while the better silver and gold keys mean better items. Players are rewarded with bronze keys, and can eventually trade up to silver, but gold are only for sale.
And they even managed to grab a comment on the length of the game:
Ultima Forever producer Carrie Gouskos said that it will take players about 200 hours to hit level 15, and that getting to the ultimate, avatar-achieving end of the game will likely take closer to 400 hours.
AppModo: EA Releases New Trailer for Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar
Long-time Ultima fans and new gamers can explore one of gaming’s beloved worlds as they travel on an epic journey, traversing vast open environments while encountering hundreds of other players & NPCs.
Set 21 years after the events of Ultima IV, gamers will face harrowing challenges and multi-layered decisions as they fight to save Britannia from the Black Weep, a mysterious plague that creates fear and drains hope from the countryside.
Kotaku: The New Ultima Can’t Come Soon Enough
I’ve not seen a more tantalizing “Coming Soon” at the end of a trailer in quite some time. Set 21 years after the events of 1985’s Ultima IV, Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar looks to capture the feel of that classic role-playing game with modern-day mechanics.
What was originally planned as a reimagining of Ultima IV now looks to be a sequel of sorts. There’s a new threat to Britannia, Richard Garriott has been given a sex change (or it’s Lord British’s non-rights-infringing daughter), and hours upon hours of action role-playing and important decisions await, all for the low price of free.
I just hope EA Mobile gives us enough of a heads-up on the release date for me to request a little time off.
PocketTactics: Rule Britannia: EA announces Ultima Forever for iOS
Some skepticism is warranted when EA tells us that they’re bringing the grand-daddy of CRPG franchises to iOS this spring: Ultima. But co-op action RPG Ultima Forever definitely looks the part of an Ultima game with its colorful isometric style, and joining up with other players to tackle open world quests sounds pretty righteous to me.
This is EA we’re talking about, though, so I’m willing to stake all the coffee in Colombia that Ultima Forever will be a freemium game – or failing that, a premium-priced game with a considerable stall of in-app purchases on offer. Will EA handle it in the same manner as the widely maligned Real Racing 3 (e.g. “Send 10 coins to revive Tiger Fai immediately!”), or will the IAPs be a sideline that allows those who paid their money up front to just get on with it?
Apropos of the above, this is an example of how to completely — hilariously — miss out on key information.
PCMag: Hands On: EA’s Ultima, Tetris, and Command & Conquer iPad Games
Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar has a lot of potential as a free-to-play iOS action RPG, but I fear fans of the Ultima series will see it as a betrayal. It takes place 21 years after Ultima IV, a game many consider to be the greatest PC RPG ever made, and the player has to fight the Black Weep, a plague that is ravaging Brittania. You play the Stranger, who must fulfill all eight Virtues and become the Avatar. You work for Lady British, Lord British’s daughter, and this is a problem for a few reasons.
First, the Ultima series already had the Stranger who became the Avatar. He was a religious figure and a paragon established through the entire Ultima series. Saying “Well, anyone can become the Avatar” rather than simply following the virtues set forth seems to muddy the impact of the entire series, and especially Ultima IV, which defined the Virtues and the Avatar to begin with.
Second, Lord British was an immortal who came from the same world as the Avatar (Earth), and him suddenly having a daughter and disappearing into retirement seems less like an evolution of the series. It’s more like taking away the biggest figure in the series, which just happens to be the avatar of Richard Garriott, the creator of the Ultima series who is not actually a part of the development of Ultima Forever. It’s possible that Ultima fans are already as angry about Ultima Forever as they were about Ultima IX (the worst game in the series), and from a canon standpoint it’s understandable.
The game itself is a touch screen-based action RPG where you play the new Stranger/Avatar and travel to different locations in Brittania to follow the virtues. This consists of helping characters with quandaries they have, offering different solutions to problems (usually in the form of multiple choice questions that follow specific virtues like honor and compassion), and of fighting through dungeons and wild areas to get items, often to help people. The gameplay seems much more simplistic than the other Ultima games, with only five item slots for the character and relatively few actions you can take in any given situation.
ARPGamer: Ultima Forever Releases Teaser Trailer
Today marks the start of an exciting announcement by Mythic regarding their upcoming return to Britannia in Ultima Forever. They’d given a heads up earlier this week about a prospective announcement to take place today, though little else was given. Now that many of us have spent much of the morning refreshing our Facebook newsfeeds in the hopes of seeing that announcement, the time has finally come.
Mythic shared with us a teaser trailor, which finally let us see first-hand the new interpretation of the Ultima universe, complete with real-time combat footage. After seeing many of the previous screenshots of environments and characters, I’ll admit I wasn’t certain how the game would turn out from an animation standpoint. The artistic direction of the game is very unique and does herald somewhat to its Ultima heritage of yesteryear.
Suffice it to say, the combat looks quite fantastic and very visually-stimulating. Complete with spell effects, melee combat, and monsters, the teaser gives an excellent idea of what is to come in this upcoming ARPG.
GayGamer: Ultima Forever Trailer
It’s been a long time since the last new Ultima game was released: 2010 if you count the MMORTS Lords of Ultima, 1997 for Ultima Online if you don’t, so fans of Garriott’s universe have had plenty of time to crave something new. Due to the nature of a teaser trailer, it’s difficult to get a full idea of what UF:QftA will be like, but it seems to be following the action RPG model done in games like Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance or Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. Or possibly Diablo 3, depending on how it’s all executed.
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As I understand it, the game is iOS-first not iOS-only, so expect it to pop up on a variety of systems after a short time as an Apple exclusive. EA will get major bonus points from me if in the process of making an Android version they port it over to the OUYA. Not holding my breath for that, but we’ll see what happens.
Tech2: Ultima Forever: Quest of the Avatar coming to iOS ‘soon’
Electronic Arts has announced that the iOS version of its upcoming free-to-play game Ultima Forever: Quest of the Avatar will be out “soon”, according to Polygon. The company has also announced that the Android version of what it likes to refer to as the spiritual successor to the Ultima series is in the works.
The story of the game is set to take place 21 years after the events of Ultima IV. Players are sent on a mission by Lady British, who is the daughter of the now-retired Lord British, to help out as the land is under attack by a plague called the Black Weep. You can check out what the gameplay will be like in this trailer.
The game looks more like Diablo than the original Ultima games. There seems to be a focus on loot. But along with all the hack-and-slash action, players will apparently also have to master the eight virtues to become the Avatar.
VG24/7: Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar trailer shows ARPG-like combat
Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar is BioWare Mythic and EA Mobile’s tribute to the classic RPG Ultima IV. It’s still not clear whether it’s a sequel, a re-imagining, or an altogether different beast, but now we know what it looks like in action.
Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar is headed to iOS, but has not been dated. It will be free-to-play, and will support co-op play and open-world questing.
Operation Rainfall: Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar Coming Soon to iOS
Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar will soon be headed to your iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Billing itself as a “return to western gaming’s most beloved series,” Mythic Entertainment and Electronic Arts’ free-to-play co-op action-RPG is set twenty-one years after the events of Ultima IV (the similarly subtitled Quest of the Avatar, which can be downloaded free from GOG.com). As the world of Britannia is slowly engulfed by the mysterious Black Weep plague, Lady British (filling in for Lord British) calls out for heroes to help save the world.
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Mythic and Electronic Arts had planned for a simultaneous PC and mobile launch for Ultima Forever, but according to the game’s Facebook page, the iOS version has taken top priority…
Games.com: Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar welcomes us to Britannia on iOS later this year
Late last year, we learned that Electronic Arts was going for a “fewer, bigger, better” approach with its lineup of mobile games in 2013, and we’ve now learned that one of those bigger and hopefully better games will be Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar.
Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar is set to be a free-to-play cooperative action role playing game that brings the classic Ultima franchise’s iconic worlds to iOS as players will travel through these environments (dungeons, forests, etc.) interacting with thousands of other players and NPCs. The game is set 21 years after Ultima IV, and will challenge players to save the world of Britannia from something called the “Black Weep,” a disease that creates fear in citizens and drains hope from the world.
Modojo: Ultima Forever: Quest For The Avatar Gameplay Trailer
If you’re in the mood for a meaty role-playing adventure, Electronic Arts and Mythic may satisfy your lust for monsters and loot with Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar, an upcoming title for iOS. Set 21 years after Ultima IV, this action RPG features a variety of quests, single/co-op play, and plenty of enemies to kill, with a conversation tree to boot. Actions in the game have long-term consequences, and a wealth of items to grab may satisfy your inner pack rat.
Hardcore Droid: EA releases Trailer for Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar
while Ultima Forever is being billed as an action role-playing game and has an online group play component, there seem to be a number of facets that remain true to the series’ roots. The game features a top-down isometric point of view, with hand-painted backgrounds and 3D characters. And it has a storyline. Hurray! The story is set some 11 years after the events at the close of Ultima 9. Lord British is out traveling the stars and the Avatar (for the uninitiated that’s you), has to take on some sort of challenge for Lord British’s daughter, Lady British. Oh, and there’s some kind of unspeakable evil as well. Bully for that, we say. What’s more, Lord British will now make a cameo appearance in the game. You see, originally they weren’t going to include the old mensch, but Garriot apparently gave the OK at the eleventh hour. So, fans of the original series might now get a chance to chat him up or take pot shots at him as he expound upon the virtues. He does tend to go on.
Lastly and most importantly: it’s rather clear that there will be an Android port. While they have not announced it officially, they are working on it. See this article here on Ultima Codex for the proof, and take this into consideration as well: Our contact at EA knows Hardcore Droid as an Android only magazine and they sent us the damn video. Do the math. We’re a shoe-in.
Hey, guys…thanks for the mention!
Android Police: Ultima Forever: Quest For The Avatar Trailer Shows Off 400 Hours Of Classic RPG Action
Ultima has been around forever. So it’s only appropriate that the series’ new mobile push incorporate the fact in its title… even if it is a bit on the nose. Ultima Forever: Quest For The Avatar is an upcoming top-down dungeon crawler set in the familiar Ultima universe, complete with online play and a massive amount of game time. According to a Polygon interview with the game’s producer, getting to level 15 will take 200 hours, while getting to the end with everything will take closer to 400.
The game is based on the battle system of Ultima 4, with a more real-time action component. Players can join online sessions for co-op battles, but this is not a MMORPG – you’ll be able to do as much questing as you want all by your lonesome. 3D graphics are in use for the characters and enemies while some gorgeous 2D graphics are put to use for the environments.
DroidGamers: EA looks to be bringing Ultima Forever: Quest For The Avatar to Android soon
Electronic Arts has announced during an interview with Polygon that they will be bringing a new Ultima game to the world but for mobile gamers to enjoy. The top-down dungeon crawler will be arriving with a ridiculous amount of content and gameplay time along with both online and offline gameplay available.
This new Ultima game will be based off of the Ultima 4 battle system which, for those of you who haven’t played Ultima 4, is basically a real-time action combat system versus any sort of turn-based one. The online gameplay portion of Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar will consist of co-op battles where players can team up to take down stronger enemies.
Portable Gaming Region: Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar trailer
In this hack and slash RPG, gamers will be able to play as either a fighter or a mage, chopping their way through hordes of demons, monsters, and other abominations with their friends. Since Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar will obviously be played online (single player campaign has not been confirmed), we expect it to be free-to-play. Also, it’s worth noting that the game has been in development for about a year, so we’ll surely be getting a highly-polished product, at least from the technical standpoint.
Boss Design: First trailer for Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar
Hey, are you an old Ultima fan? Well I am, and I’ve been waiting a long time for a new good Ultima game, can’t say the main-series ended on a high note after all, and with Ultima X Odyssey being canceled in the early 2000s I thought we’d never see a new game again.
Enter Mythic (Dark Age of Camelot, Godzilla Online, Warhammer Online, Aliens Online etc.), the new developer tasked with bringing the world of Brittania to life. Hitting iOS (And PC + Other Mobile Devices at a later date) comes Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar, a Action RPG largely inspired by Ultima IV, often regarded as one of the best Ultima games.
After viewing the trailer, I’m not sure what to feel. The return to the classic top-down-view is nice, and keeping all the cities and dungeons from Ultima IV is a nice touch, I certainly don’t mind the Action-RPG approach either, it’s what Ultima VIII and Ultima IX wanted to do but both failed at.
So there you have it: a whole lot of coverage from a fairly wide variety of sources focused on Ultima Forever and the footage of it featured in the recently-released trailer. Not all of it is particularly positive coverage, of course, but I for one find it interesting at just how enthusiastic some of the Android-focused sites are about it (even though the Android port isn’t going to be coming out for a while).