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.
La Legende d' Ultima is a French information site which used to host various Ultima resources from Ultima sources, although Sergorn himself translated several pieces of written information to French. As from August 2005 an English version of the site, called "The Ultima Legend", became available. In more recent years, the site became what it is now - a French-only shadow of its former glory, with the news/blog being the main attraction.
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.
Pentagram started off as an Ultima 8 Map and Shapes Viewer made by some members of the Exult team. This is evolving into an engine in itself. While the game is not yet fully playable with Pentagram, it is fast becoming an Exult for Ultima 8.
Seven Towers is the website of Marzo Sette Torres Junior, a member of the Exult team. It contains some Exult mods and Usecode C documentation.
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 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.
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.
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.
The author of this remake used to work with Redemption, but he eventually left to start his own project. While Redemption focused on a totally new game, Infinity Eternal was more focused towards remaining faithful to certain parts of the plot of the original game, yet correct the flaws that haunted it.
Ultima 5 - Lazarus is finally complete, after 5 and a half years of development. It did what the more largely anticipated Ultima 1 - A Legend is Reborn could not - reach the finish line. After releasing two demos in a short span of time in 2004, Lazarus was officially released on 22nd December 2005.
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.
Ultima: The Reconstruction was the first site that took care of listing all remakes and archiving their releases in case they eventually died down.
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.
The Ultimatrix Homepage is home to many brilliant utilities such as the Ultimatrix viewer and the Ultima Launcher.
Ultima Lives once had an archive of resources taken from other sources.
Auric's Ultima Moongates was a great resource site, containing a mix of 'borrowed' resources and resources made by the webmaster himself. While the actual site is already extraordinary, the Ultima 4 Annex it hosts is probably the best Ultima 4 resource on the net, containing even a dynamic map and descriptions of important objects, among other things.
Trigon Dragon's Ultima Dox specialises on the documentation of those Ultimas which had relatively poor documentation, namely Ultimas 1-6 and Akalabeth. There are also other resources such as mapping fonts and disk art.
Ultima Info is one of the greatest Ultima resource sites on the net, originally maintained by one of the most knowledgable dragons. There are many parts to Ultima Info, including a maps section, an archive of Micro Dragon's once-lost documentation and other useful sections. But the most prominent is The Other Codex, containing general information about all the Ultimas. Much useful information is provided by Paulon himself, and he also links to external resources.
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.
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.
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 curators of the Origin Museum have met many of the original Ultima developers, and own many Ultima collectibles and unique artifacts. There were also many stories about the curators' meetings with the Ultima developers and some which concern Ultima lore closely.
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.
Blackshadow Dragon's Ultima Warehouse used to host several Ultima resources that could be found elsewhere on the net (and some which were slowly vanishing from the net); this includes maps, downloads, music, walkthroughs and more.
serpent-isle.co.uk (the site takes the same name as its domain) had reviews of each Ultima, sometimes providing a screenshot or two to show what the game is like. The reviews weren't of the highest quality, having quite a few flaws.
The World of Ultima was one of the oldest Ultima sites, established in 1995. It had several Ultima pictures and music files, along with other files you can download, including a program that can take screenshots of Ultima games.
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:
The Lands of Ultima is a Java site showing all the maps in Ultimas 1, 3 and 5. City maps are usually shown by going to the city icon in the world map. The important places are labelled and some sort of description will appear when you move your cursor over them.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 3 in Windows, or U3Project as it is also called, is based in Windows (just like Windows-Native Ultima 2 above). Render Dragon is hoping to rewrite the game as a Windows application using the data files of the original game. This rewrite involves other improvements, especially as far as graphics are concerned.
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.
The Lair of the Evil_Freak contains a library of Ultima fan fiction.
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.
This site was once a great archive of patches such as the Ultima 9 dialogue, economy and monster patches (even made by maintainers of Fans for Ultima itself), and linked to remakes much like Ultima: The Reconstruction and Ultima: Aiera nowadays do. Eventually, it became out of date, and its maintainers saw no point in letting it stand any more.
The Ultima Emulation Archive, formerly known as the Dragon's Den, was once a host for many non-PC versions of the Ultima games (such as Game Boy, Atari, C64, etc). Thanks to the Internet Archive, I have managed to recover some of the pages in this site. They are stripped of images and many links are broken, but quite a few resources, especially the text files, are there.
Samson Dragon, who maintained the Ultima Emulation Archive, also had an Ultima 4 website at a different web address. Several years after the demise of the Ultima Emulation Archive, this website also followed its fate.
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.
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.
Wolf Dreamer's site was a humour site dedicated to strange and weird things in Ultima 9. It was hosted on two separate servers; fortunately, I managed to save everything before the main site went down. I also got permission from both Wolf Dreamer and Silva Dragon (who inherited the rights to host the site when Wolf Dreamer gave up on it) to host the site.
The main part of the site was at http://home.earthlink.net/~thomasprewitt/. One page, that still exists, is at http://www.fortunecity.com/rivendell/lunar/274/slavegirl.html.
Hannibal's Ultima IX Page was one of the best sources of Ultima 9 information, humour and pictures. The site was eventually taken down due to hosting issues, but Hannibal was kind enough to send me the files and give me permission to host them, on 24th September 2005.
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.
Quoting this piece of news from The Ultima Codex:
This short-lived, ambitious project by prmths aimed to create engines, compatible with most modern operating systems, for the first six Ultima games (and Akalabeth). It... fell short of that goal, disappearing shortly after the release of a beta version that fully supported Akalabeth and partially supported Ultima 1.
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.
This was the first form of the Eriadain project, using different RPG Maker versions. Two demos were released, using RPG Maker 1995 and 2000 respectively. The project eventually evolved into Eriadain for Neverwinter Nights, until it was cancelled entirely.
Alter U9 has now been adopted by the Ultima Orphanage.
Eriadain began as Alter-U9, and then moved on to Neverwinter Nights. The plan for this project was to use the original Bob White plot, which was omitted from the original Ultima 9. It was cancelled on 13th August 2004.
Eriadain has now been adopted by the Ultima Orphanage. There were also a set of 49 surviving screenshots at UltimaDot, but those can now only be seen here thanks to the Wayback Machine.
Mike Morrato was remaking Ultima 7 using Neverwinter Nights. Soon after his website moved to a new host, however, it went down and nothing more was heard from him.
Little is now known about this project. Its team planned to remake both The Black Gate and Serpent Isle. As far as I can remember, nothing was ever released for this project, other than a barren website. If I remember correctly, the project died in the year 2000.
The only surviving item from this project is this title graphic from their website that I kept over the years.
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.
The Orphanage used to host what remained of cancelled or abandoned remakes, and was complementary to Aiera (being made by the same webmaster).
Adventures of Blackthorn was planned to show the fate of Blackthorn after being banished by Lord British at the end of Ultima 5. The project was abandoned in mid-February 2004, for reasons that I only brought to light at the end of June 2004.
Worlds of Ultima: Lost Sosaria is best described by Aiera:
Pursuing Fellowship agents deep into the bowels of Britannia and the ruins of the Great Stygian Abyss, the companion Sentri leads his party of former friends and companions of the Avatar into an unknown part of the world: Lost Sosaria, two of the continents of Old Sosaria left missing after the death of the Wizard Mondain.
Lost Sosaria is not set in Britannia, but is about the discovery of new places, as is the tradition of the Worlds of Ultima games.
Chronicles of Batlin was planned to allow you to play Batlin's role, uncovering much of what he did before he was thwarted by the Avatar. However, their host took down their website, and they haven't yet reappeared. Even their cjb.net redirection has been removed.
Ultima - The New King originally aimed at producing a sequel to Ultima 9: Ascension. After officially merging with the Redemption team on 18th September 2004, it is, instead, going to be a sequel to Redemption.
When Peroxide cancelled their Ultima 1 remake, they turned their attention to a new project called Era that would be free of all relationships with Ultima, and thus, with any possible legal issues with EA. However, Peroxide gave up with Era as well on 5th August 2004, to start with something else. The reasons for this ending to the project have been posted to the Peroxide forum.
A rewrite of Akalabeth has been developed for Java-compatible mobile phones.
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:
Minerjr has remade Akalabeth already, and is working on a further remake with better graphics, though the last site update dates back to 2002. At his Akalabeth Remake Home Page, you can download his remakes as well as the graphics patch for Akalabeth using Serpent Isle graphics and the original game.
Among Paul Robson's SDL Games is an SDL remake of Akalabeth.
Nazghul is a totally new game engine using the Ultima 5 graphics. A game called Haxima has recently been announced - it will use the Nazghul game engine.
This remake of Ultima 2 takes the name of the Quicksword, the most powerful weapon in the original game. The remake was originally called Enildo, but this mistake was eventually corrected. First led by Sage and planned to use its own engine, Enilno will be instead developed by the Titans of Ether, since the team disbanded and Sage joined the Titans.
This remake was one of the most promising remakes, along with Ultima 1 - A Legend is Reborn and Ultima 5 - Lazarus. A demo was promised in December 2001, but it was never released, as the team kept insisting on adding features and postponing the release to when there were enough features.
The site unexpectedly went down in September 2004, and a farewell notice was posted on the 17th of the same month:
The Ultima IV: The Dawn of Virtue project was started in 2001. After nearly three years of communication with Electronic Arts Inc. to seek legal permission for the project, they have told me they cannot grant it. Therefore, Ultima IV: The Dawn of Virtue is canceled and the project is closed.
I am extremely disappointed with this turn of events. Ultima IV: The Dawn of Virtue was a project I was very passionate about and on which I had worked arduously.
Espoo, Finland, September 17, 2004,
Jaakko Peltonen
Ultima IV Reborn is another Ultima 4 remake for Neverwinter Nights; very little is known about it at the moment and not many people know about it (it isn't listed in many Ultima sites). Judging by the comments, this remake deserves much better popularity.
Ultima 4 - Virtue of Humility is a rewrite of Ultima 4 in DarkBasic, and its name comes from an optional module that was added to the game. Although this remake has long been completed, it continues to be updated with additional enhancements.
The website for Ultima 5 for Morrowind went live in February 2005. The site doesn't seem to exist, but I haven't checked whether the project still exists elsewhere.
David Randall recreated Ultima 5 specifically for TI calculators. I had created a page about his remake to centralise information about it.
The Red Mage had released a demo of Ultima 8 for Neverwinter Nights, but renounced remaking Ultima 8 when he discovered that the Exile project already existed. The project resurfaced in September 2006, after the Exile project had been cancelled.
The authors of the demo of Ultima 8 for Neverwinter Nights decided to abandon remaking Ultima 8 when they realised that a remake for the game (Ultima 8 - Exile) already existed. Instead, they took up the task of remaking Ultima 7 under the name 'Agape'. However, this didn't work out either, and the project died in October 2004. Major Error took over the Ultima 7: Agape project, but nothing is known about current development.
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.
A remake of Ultima 1 that was cancelled in February 2014.
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 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.
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.
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.
This is the home of the Ultima 6 Nitpicker's Delight Patch among other things.
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.
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 Gates of the Abyss used to be a website specifically about Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss.
See also: the forum thread where this was announced in 2007.
See the Ultima 4 Remakes section for more information about Ultima IV Rebirth.
See the Remakes and Engines section of the U7BG Guide for more information about The Bread Gate.