{"id":23606,"date":"2024-03-13T10:45:15","date_gmt":"2024-03-13T14:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.museumofplay.org\/?post_type=games&#038;p=23606"},"modified":"2025-04-03T09:37:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T13:37:47","slug":"ultima","status":"publish","type":"games","link":"https:\/\/www.museumofplay.org\/games\/ultima\/","title":{"rendered":"Ultima"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ultima Background\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mxc79J3uInY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Inducted: 2024<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Ultima: The First Age of Darkness<\/em> designer Richard Garriott seemed almost destined to create immersive video game worlds. The son of a professional artist and a NASA astronaut who had spent 60 days on the Skylab space station, Garriott grew up in a community of engineers and scientists who, like his father, worked at the Johnson Space Center near Houston, TX. As a boy, Garriott began making immersive Halloween and other holiday displays after entering a recreated witch\u2019s chamber while trick-or-treating at a neighbor\u2019s home. Inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s fantasy trilogy <em>The Lord of the Rings<\/em>, the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons &amp; Dragons, and his introduction to computers, Garriott learned to program while in high school and began working on his own D&amp;D-style computer games just for fun. When the manager of a local computer store urged him to publish one of his games, Garriott released his first computer role-playing game, <em>Akalabeth: World of Doom<\/em> for the Apple II in 1979. The game sold well enough to convince Garriott he could create an even bigger and better game. Released in 1981, <em>Ultima<\/em> helped define the computer role-playing game genre while inspiring a generation of future video game developers.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.museumofplay.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/05\/WVGHOF-inductees_Ultima-042024-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Ultima game boxes\" class=\"wp-image-24190\" style=\"width:493px;height:493px\" width=\"493\" height=\"493\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.museumofplay.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/05\/WVGHOF-inductees_Ultima-042024-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.museumofplay.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/05\/WVGHOF-inductees_Ultima-042024-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.museumofplay.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/05\/WVGHOF-inductees_Ultima-042024-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.museumofplay.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/05\/WVGHOF-inductees_Ultima-042024-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.museumofplay.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/05\/WVGHOF-inductees_Ultima-042024-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.museumofplay.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/05\/WVGHOF-inductees_Ultima-042024-2048x2048.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.museumofplay.org\/app\/uploads\/2024\/05\/WVGHOF-inductees_Ultima-042024-600x600.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 493px) 100vw, 493px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p><em>Ultima <\/em>relied on role-playing game mechanics that asked a player to choose to play as a cleric, fighter, thief, or wizard\u2014each with 90 points to distribute among the six-character statistics of agility, charisma, intelligence, stamina, strength, and wisdom. But what set <em>Ultima<\/em> apart from other computer role-playing games at the time was the size of its fictional world and its blend of fantasy and science fiction settings, themes, and stories. Set in the fictional world of Sosaria, <em>Ultima<\/em> challenged players to create a character who must find a time machine and earn the four gems needed to use it, to travel back in time 1,000 years to destroy the evil wizard Mondain before he becomes immortal. To do that, players had to battle monsters in subterranean dungeons <em>and<\/em> blast enemy ships in arcade-style, outer space combat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Combining this blend of genres and mechanics with the game\u2019s innovative tile graphics (made possible with the help of Garriott\u2019s friend Ken Arnold) opened up the game\u2019s world from the confines of a series of dungeons. While other dungeon crawlers led players through an underground maze, <em>Ultima<\/em> allowed players to shift their perspectives. When players entered a dungeon, they searched for treasure and fought enemies from a first-person perspective. When the players moved aboveground, they transitioned to a top-down overworld map with the option of heading into a town or village where they could talk with inhabitants or purchase supplies or weapons. Few games in the early 1980s empowered players to explore such an expansive world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Ultima<\/em>\u2019s innovative gameplay laid the foundation for one of the most enduring and influential gaming franchises of all time. The game proved so popular with players\u2014who purchased more than 20,000 copies in its first year\u2014that Garriott started working on a sequel and in 1983 he founded game developer Origin Systems to make more of them. Between 1982 and 1999, the game spawned eight sequels, and in 1997, Origin launched the landmark massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) <em>Ultima Online<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although <em>Ultima<\/em> may not be a household name, the game, and the series it spawned, are legendary among role-playing game fans and game developers around the world. <em>Dragon Quest<\/em> creator Yuji Horii, Bethesda producer Todd Howard, and <em>Final Fantasy<\/em> creator Hironobu Sakaguchi all have credited the game or the series as a direct inspiration for their own video games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Did You Know?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2008, <em>Ultima<\/em> creator Richard Garriott flew aboard a Russian spacecraft and spent 12 days on the International Space Station as a private astronaut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Related Content<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.museumofplay.org\/blog\/the-influence-of-dungeons-and-dragons-on-video-games\/\">The Influence of Dungeon and Dragons on Video Games<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.museumofplay.org\/blog\/a-genealogy-of-fantasy-play-with-a-special-nod-to-iceland\/\">A Genealogy of Fantasy Play (with a Special Nod to Iceland)<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.museumofplay.org\/blog\/from-outdoor-survival-to-runescape\/\">From Outdoor Survival to RuneScape<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Inducted: 2024<\/strong><br \/>\nUltima: The First Age of Darkness designer Richard Garriott seemed almost destined to create immersive video game worlds. The son of a professional artist and a NASA astronaut who had spent 60 days on the Skylab space station, Garriott grew up in a community of engineers and scientists who, like his father, worked at the Johnson Space Center near Houston, TX. As a boy, Garriott began making immersive Halloween and other holiday displays after entering a recreated witch\u2019s chamber [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":23591,"template":"","year_inducted":[512],"class_list":["post-23606","games","type-games","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","year_inducted-512","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ultima - The Strong National Museum of Play<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.museumofplay.org\/games\/ultima\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ultima - The Strong National Museum of Play\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Inducted: 2024 Ultima: The First Age of Darkness designer Richard Garriott seemed almost destined to create immersive video game worlds. 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