The Return of Ultima!

Ultima Returns With Free-to-Play iPad and PC Game

Looks like the classic PC RPG series Ultima is back to entertain fans with some big studio backing and a free-to-play model. Here’s an excerpt from the above linked article:

Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar is being developed by Bioware’s Mythic Studios. The RPG will be a downloadable client-based game that will sync between both PC and iPad. EA says the game will support multiplayer, and allow for friends to play with each other across devices.

“With Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar, we’re excited to give gamers the opportunity to play a high quality game with their friends anytime, anywhere, on both iPad and PC,” Ray Muzyka, general manager and co-founder of BioWare, said.

A co-worker shared this with me and we talked about the memories this game brings back. My next door neighbor in the mid-80s got me hooked into PC gaming with an Apple IIe around this time. While I loved all genres he was huge into RPGS and Ultima spanned the length of our friendship. It also created a pseudo-arms race where we begged, borrowed and bartered for pc parts that could handle the high EMS memory requirements for games like Ultima VI and VII.  It is good to see this classic RPG franchise coming back and under the development of Bioware no less (though their track record has become shakier over the past few games). The link in the quote will take you to the game’s page where you can sign up for Ultima Forever Beta access now!