Exult is the masterpiece that inspired all the other SDL-based engines. After having started off as a humble viewer of the Ultima 7 game world, it quickly evolved into a complete engine for Ultima 7, along with many improvements. Development on Exult is complete, and development is now concentrating on improving minor things with Exult itself, developing Exult Studio and developing Pentagram for Ultima 8.
Hacki's Ultima Page is the only Ultima website dedicated to nitpicking the Ultima series, i.e. discovering every little fault in the games. This site is an extensive archive of Ultima nitpicks submitted by many different people; anyone can submit a nitpick, though there are a few simple rules to prevent it from getting boring (no nitpicking of bugs, for example).
Hacki's Ultima Page started off by aggressively nitpicking Ultima 9, to prove what a poor game it is. For fun, the nitpicking tradition was eventually extended to all the other Ultimas.
Aiera was made by Withstand the Fury Dragon to continue the legacy of Ultima: The Reconstruction when it became silent and out of date. Aiera was for a long time the top Ultima remakes hub, hosting downloads of the Ultima remakes, and posting news regularly about them, until it was reincarnated as The Ultima Codex by the same author.
I had assisted in the creation and maintenance of Aiera, and Withstand the Fury Dragon and I have often collaborated to bring the best of Ultima news and resources to the Ultima community.
UltimaDot was once a very active news site, especially in the time of Ultima X when it reported news several times a day.
Eventually RPGDot (the parent site of UltimaDot) was taken over by Jolt; soon afterwards the UltimaDot crew left to create RPGWatch. After that, a brief period of time followed in which UltimaDot saw only UO-related updates, and finally the whole RPGDot network was taken down.
Electronic Arts was working on a sequel to Ultima 9 in 2003-2004. After the move of Origin Systems to California, this project was unexpectedly cancelled.
IT-HE Software is a unique site mostly dedicated to abusing the games' technical flaws and glitches (aka bugs). This page is famous particularly for its anti-walkthroughs (walkthroughs describing how to beat the game by breaking all the rules, exploiting bugs, being evil and enjoying it a good deal), but also for its extensive list of fun things to do in the games from Ultima 6 to 9. Even after having read through it several times, you can go back one day to read it again, and it will still make you laugh.
Nowadays, you can enjoy a new dimension of mischief via the related YouTube channel.
This site stood out from the beginning because of its awesome graphics. The site originally consisted of three parts:
Gargish Dragon, as the name suggests, knows a lot about the culture of the Gargoyles and has written useful information about their language, including a Gargish dictionary. His dictionary received a link from the official Ultima Web Archive, even though that link is now old and doesn't work.
Arcana Dragon's Ultima Archive consisted mostly of downloads, though there were also some text files and screenshots.
Kenn's Map Page is not focused towards Ultima, but also has maps of other games. As far as Ultima is concerned, it has maps of The Savage Empire (which are the best you'll ever find from that game) and Ultima 7 (parts 1 and 2).
As the name implies, Grimpond Dragon's Ultima Cheater's Site is oriented towards cheating in Ultima games. It is not limited to that, however, as there are also other spoilers.
Formerly known as "The Codex of Editable Wisdom", this site is the latest of a long line of attempts at creating an Ultima encyclopaedia. Using wiki technology, this site has certainly reached this objective.
Arthuris Dragon's Ultima Maps and Tables incorporates some miscellaneous resources, mostly consisting of maps. The maps here are unique, and the most precious to me are the complete Ultima Underworld (1 and 2) maps and the huge computer-generated maps of Ultima 7 (parts 1 and 2).
At Arthuris Dragon's personal page are hosted the IRC logs of most of the Ultima engines.
Iolo's Lute specialises mostly on Ultima 7 (parts 1 and 2) but also has a section dedicated to Ultimas 1-6. The information for Ultimas 1-6 seems to be taken from other sources (especially the Ultima Web Archive) but the Ultima 7 parts are really detailed and apparently original. Even sidequests are well explained.
Ultima Thule! provides lists of information about the Ultima series including price lists, ethics and characters, as well as some downloads of Ultima characters for the Infinity Engine RPGs.
This site was made by the author of The Ultima Emulation Archive. It used to host all kind of Ultima 4 resources, including maps, walkthroughs, patches and much more.
The Notable Ultima has always been one of the top resource sites. It has unique resources such as information about the history and people of Origin, as well as complete transcripts from almost all the Ultimas. While the website has not been updated in a while (at least to my knowledge), it got its own domain in March 2004.
Ultima 2 in Windows is hosted at Ultima: The Reconstruction and can be used to run Ultima 2 under Windows. Unlike the other engines listed here, this does not seem to be cross-platform and focuses only on Windows. The last release dates back to 2000, and the project does not seem to be maintained any more, but that doesn't matter as it is complete after all. Along with the ability to play the old Ultima 2, there are also options you can set to your comfort, such as the screen resolution, the colours and the ability to easily restart the game.
xu4 allows you to play Ultima 4 on modern operating systems, and is cross-platform as it uses SDL. Although the game is going through beta testing, it is supposed to be fully playable from beginning to end.
Only the name is known about this project. Nu5, standing for "Neat Ultima 5", has no website content and appears to still be in planning stages.
Nuvie (meaning "New Ultima VI Engine") is developing into a nice engine for Ultima 6. While there are no official releases yet, test releases (aka snapshots) are released regularly. While not everything has been implemented, Nuvie is not only becoming an engine to run the original game with, but also has lots of impressive improvements that the original game lacks.
Underworld Adventures is an engine in which to run Ultima Underworld 1, with planned extensibility also to the second installment, and possibly the creation of a game editor.
Quill Dragon's Lair specialises, as the name suggests, in written information. This includes manuals, documentation and transcripts mostly, but there are also essays, tests and a few other resources.
Galadis' Ultima Comics is home to a very creative representation of Ultima 7: The Black Gate in comic form. The comic is available in English or French.
The Lost Vale is a fanfiction written by Amazing Dragon to give life to the add-on of Ultima 8 that was never released. Unfortunately, the files were lost on his host, but thanks to Natreg Dragon I was able to recover them and put them back online. It is a known fact that Dino's Ultima Page itself started as a simple host for this fanfiction. Nowadays, it is also hosted at the Dragon Press.
Left: The main page
Middle: The story section - notice the navigation frame which is not there in the version I host
Other resources, with a different navigation frame
The version I am hosting has undergone some changes. The frames and background music were removed, the main page was completely rewritten, and there were some minor corrections. A few screenshots of the site's former shape are shown above.
The same person who wrote Avatarship was about to begin an Ultima 5 remake when his site was lost and nothing more was heard from him. All that were ever released of this remake were nine screenshots..
Avatarship is an Ultima 4 remake for Neverwinter Nights, which was completed some time ago. While its home page is dead, the Avatarship NWVault page still exists, and you can download it from there.
The Ultima Codex is the latest incarnation of Ultima: Aiera.
The Ultima Web Archive is the official Ultima information archive - one of the oldest resource sites, and has not been updated in years, but can still be useful. The FTP archive contains other stuff that doesn't appear on the actual website.
Silva's Ultima Site had interesting commentaries for each Ultima game, as well as some other resources including screenshots and maps. To my knowledge, all Silva's resources were the result of her own toil, and thus not taken from other websites.
Many people know that Ultima 8 was a buggy game, sometimes annoying with jumping puzzles, and very hard to run on modern operating systems. Corvwyn began remaking Ultima 8 to remake the game with better graphics (using the Neverwinter Nights engine), better gameplay and a better overall plot. The project was cancelled in 2006.
The High Resolution Ultima Map Project, acronymed 'HRUMP' for short, has the most beautiful Ultima world maps on the net. There are maps from Ultima 1 to 8 including the Worlds of Ultima spin-offs in four different sizes.
Ultima: The Reconstruction was the first site that took care of listing all remakes and archiving their releases in case they eventually died down.
The Orphanage used to host what remained of cancelled or abandoned remakes, and was complementary to Aiera (being made by the same webmaster).
The Ring of Dragons is a webring of Ultima sites. Ultima sites which join the webring are listed in the hub of the ring and carry links to the webring hub as well as to the next and previous sites on the ring.
The World of Ultima is one of the oldest Ultima sites still around, established in 1995. It has several Ultima pictures and music files, along with other files you can download, including a program that can take screenshots of Ultima games.
PD's Hint Network has complete guides to Ultima 1 and Ultima 8, and an incomplete but well-detailed guide to Ultima 9. The Ultima 8 guide in particular is extremely detailed and goes into all areas on the game; it is one of the most detailed guides on the net.
The Ultima 6 Project worked closely with Team Lazarus and some Team Elemental, and became the second major Ultima remake (after Lazarus) to reach completion.
Labyrinth of Worlds is a remake of Ultima Underworld 2 with such things as 3D models and a different GUI. The feel of the game is being kept as close to the original as possible, but this remake is not going to be as faithful as Exult, especially as far as graphics go.
Redemption began under the lead of Avatus. Problems arose when he left; the team lost motivation and the project was heading for a fall. In September 2004, however, Corv from Ultima - The New King offered to join forces, and the two teams merged to form the Titans of Ether.
After 12 years in development, the Titans of Ether also gave up on Ultima 9: Redemption and cancelled the project in December 2016.
The soundtrack [Spotify | YouTube] for Ultima 9: Redemption, composed in 2006-2008 by Matti Paalanen while the project was in the hands of the Titans of Ether, has survived.
The Titans of Ether used to run the Ultima 9: Redemption and Ultima: The New King projects for many years. In December 2016, Ultima 9: Redemption was cancelled, and the Titans embarked upon a new project called Corven - Path of Redemption, which isn't Ultima-related. They have since rebranded to Lycantic.
Pagan-NWN is a recent remake of Ultima 8 using the Neverwinter Nights engine. It was started sometime in 2010, and had most of the areas mapped using the NWN toolset. It is currently inactive, the module as well as several screenshots were uploaded to Github on 20th March 2014 to make it available to the public.
Kravlor Dragon's site was remarkable in that he hosted a transcription of the Pentology Ultima VIII Cluebook, which contained detailed maps, stats about weapons, armour and monsters, as well as a guide to magic. Although this site is now gone, an archived version may be still be reached thanks to the Internet Archive.
Ultima Underworld Series Central Chamber by TTLG (Through The Looking Glass).
Check out the U6 maps.
See the launch post for info on The Digital Lycaeum.
Ultima 7: Blackrock was a project using the Exult engine which aimed to remake The Black Gate and Serpent Isle, adding the long-forgotten Serpent Isle original plot and elaborating on elements in The Black Gate that could have been expanded further.
From their website:
What is Ultima 7: Blackrock?
Ultima 7: Blackrock is a project to addon to and expand the story and game world of the Ultima 7: Black Gate and Ultima 7 Part Two: Serpent Isle games. It elaborates on a lot of "what if" scenarios in both games, adding to an already very open pair of games. It also adds a few new plot elements and twists into the storyline of the two games and brings a lot of elements from previous Ultima games back into the story.
This is a remake of Ultima 1 using the Unity game engine. It began in March 2017 and was announced to the public in April 2017. The following features are planned (quoting the uUltima website):
- Utilization of the XU4 tileset designed by Josh Steele for all overworld and town maps, which will replace the classic 16-color EGA tileset used in the original game.
- Simplified user-interface utilizing icons instead of keyboard keys to interact with the game world.
- Planned releases for both PC and Android with platform-specific control schemes (keyboard+mouse for PC and touchscreen for Android).
- Utilization of modern Ultima music tracks where appropriate and available. I have been listening to the U5: Lazerus soundtrack while working on this and feel some of it's tracks match the mood of the game so I plan on reaching out to the composer at some point in the hopes of securing permission to use the soundtrack.
- Implementation of a quest log/journal which should ease the initial learning curve/difficulty of the game and make it more accessible to new players.
Ian Albert's site has computer-generated Ultima 6 maps and Ultima 7 maps (both BG and SI). There is also an Ultima 6 Minecraft Conversion.
Brad Hannah is building an engine around Ultima 5's original game files, and gradually moving in the direction of an isometric 3D perspective.
Read about this tool at this blog post.
When using the Wayback Machine, you might not be able to access the homepage. Instead, try accessing the Ultima 5 Manual and Maps (Wayback Machine link) directly.
The Dragon Press is now maintained by Shadow of Light Dragon, and has recovered all of the old fanfictions that were once lost (the last few being The Lost Vale and The True Tale of Batlin).
The Ultimatrix Homepage is home to many brilliant utilities such as the Ultimatrix viewer and the Ultima Launcher.
This was the first fan-made online Ultima, and is live and playable.
Ultima 4 Multiplayer aims to bring Ultima 4 into the multiplayer world. It is now superceded by Classic Ultima Online.
higHChloride writes: "Ultima Online: Serpent Isle is a shard in active development featuring an ongoing recreation of the Serpent Isle map. The cities of Monitor, Fawn, and Moonshade are already completed, as is the Inn of the Sleeping Bull, and players are invited to log on now and begin their adventures. Alongside tile-by-tile recreations of the original locations, there are new areas which take advantage of unused or previously inaccessible parts of the map. The shard is running on modified Stygian Abyss era rules and PvP is enabled. A customized client is offered which includes both artwork and music featured in the original game. You can find more by visiting https://uoserpentisle.com."
This is not a website, but a Facebook group where the Ultima Dragons that are still active hang out.
The Ultima 1 remake was one of the first Ultima remakes, definately the most popular, and possibly the one that inspired many of the others that there are today. Back in the day, it was the only remake that had released three technology demos of its beautiful game engine, with wonderful landscape and a small plot to keep it from getting boring.
Unfortunately, it was cancelled on 3rd January 2003. Working under the shadow of possible consequences from EA was too much to bear. The team then abandoned all Ultima connections and began working on "Era", but that, too, was cancelled.
The remake was being developed by the Peroxide team and led by Telemachos. They developed their own engine for this.
Learn more about Ultima 1: A Legend is Reborn at:
The Gates of the Abyss used to be a website specifically about Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss.
