Trivia / Ultima

• Colbert Bump: Thanks to Spoony retrospective on the series.
• Real Song Theme Tune: "Rule Britannia" is used as a theme song for Lord British throughout the series.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Ultima IV: Part II was going to be a sequel to Ultima IV.
  • Multi-player Ultima would have been an eight-to-sixteen-player multiplayer strategy game released in 1986-1987. The concept of a multiplayer Ultima game was later revisited in Multima, a multiplayer game using the Ultima VI engine, but that was canceled too.
  • Mythos was to be a precursor to Worlds of Ultima using the Ultima VI engine. It would have featured Caribbean pirates and a Greek-inspired setting and was set to be released around 1990.
  • Arthurian Legends would have been either the third game in the Worlds of Ultima series, or a standalone game. It would have used the Ultima VII engine and, as the name implied, it would be set in a Camelot-type setting.
  • Ultima Underworld III would have featured a new world and protagonist, and would have been released sometime around 1993-1995.
  • During the heady days of the early 90s there was serious talk of producing a crossover game with Wing Commander. The developers had even gone so far as to place references to the Kilrathi in Ultima Underworld, Ultima VII and Serpent Isle (though the last one was cut for time). However since the game was supposed to take place after the Guardian trilogy, the Development Hell of Ultima IX kept pushing it farther and farther into the future. By the time Ultima IX was done, both Chris Roberts and Richard Garriot were no longer with Origin, and EA had no interest in developing either property any further.
  • Serpent Isle was going to include a Wing Commander Shout-Out, with the inaccessible island Claw being accessible, as part of a sub-plot about a tribe of cat people worshiping a Kilrathi pilot who was stranded on the island, possibly the pilot of the Kilrathi ship in Ultima VII. The NPC Yurel was going to be a companion and member of the cat people tribe, trying to save his people from extinction.
  • Ultima VIII: The Lost Vale was a cancelled expansion for Ultima VIII that would address the Zealan sub-plot, and what was behind the double doors in the Plateau.
  • Ultima IX was planned to be an isometric game based on a refined Ultima VIII/Crusader engine. It was later moved to a polygon-based 3D isometric view, with a party and skill system, and would have received a PlayStation port. This version was cancelled after the development team moved to Ultima Online. Development was then restarted as a hardware accelerated fully 3D game with the Glide API. The party system was replaced with taking control of NPCs, and a multiplayer feature was suggested. The released version was Christmas rushed with no party system, and huge chunks of the game removed or dummied out.
  • Ultima Forever was going to be published simultaneously on iOS, Android, and PC, though only the iOS version was published.
  • Ultima Online 2 would have been a 3D "2nd generation MMORPG" to compete with EverQuest. Its name was changed to Ultima Worlds Online: Origin. It would have been released sometime around 2000-2001.
  • Tabula Rasa/Ultima X was intended as a Spiritual Successor to Ultima. The first version was going to be a fantasy MMORPG, then was scrapped to make a second fantasy MMORPG, then it was scrapped entirely and made into a completely different MMOFPS.
  • Ultima X: Odyssey would have been an MMORPG set on the world of Alucinor, continuing where Ultima IX left off. It would have had more cartoonish graphics and a virtue system.
  • Ultima Resurrection would have been a hack n' slash game for the PSP released around 2005-2006.
• Working Title: Ultimatum.
• Writer Conflicts with Canon: According to Richard Garriott, Spark grows up to live happily ever after, marrying a nice local girl, having two kids, and raising goats. In Ultima IX, Spark appears as a dead Paladin.

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