# Ultima *later Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness* - Work: Computer RPG - Date: 1981 (Apple II) - Made by: Richard Garriott (Designer & programmer) - Houses: Origin Systems, Sierra On-Line - Platforms: Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, MSX2, Sharp X1, PC-88, PC-98, FM Towns, Apple IIGS - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ultima-i/ > A teenager's Apple II epic in which a stranger from another world crosses Sosaria's four continents, rescues princesses, becomes a space ace and travels back in time to shatter Mondain's Gem of Immortality. **Why it matters:** The first Ultima joined a tile-based overworld, first-person dungeons and a quest-driven plot into one open world, founding the series that did more than any other to define the Western computer RPG. ## Quick answers **When was Ultima first released?** Ultima was first released in 1981 (Apple II). **Who created Ultima?** Ultima was made by Richard Garriott (designer & programmer). **Who published or developed Ultima?** Origin Systems and Sierra On-Line. **What kind of work is Ultima?** Ultima is a computer RPG in the Western Computer RPGs (CRPG) and Open-World RPGs tradition, released for Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, MSX2, Sharp X1, PC-88, PC-98, FM Towns and Apple IIGS. **Why is Ultima important?** The first Ultima joined a tile-based overworld, first-person dungeons and a quest-driven plot into one open world, founding the series that did more than any other to define the Western computer RPG. ## Overview A stranger arrives from another world. The land of Sosaria, four continents ruled by eight quarrelsome lords, is plagued by the monsters of the evil wizard Mondain, who a thousand years ago forged a Gem of Immortality that makes him impossible to kill. Lord British needs a champion. The only way to win is to travel back in time and destroy Mondain before the gem is complete, and to do that you will need four gems from four lords, a time machine, and, improbably, a space shuttle. *Ultima*, published by California Pacific Computer Company for the Apple II in June 1981 and later retitled *Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness*, was [Richard Garriott](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/richard-garriott/)'s second commercial game and the first of the series that would carry his alter ego, Lord British, through nearly two decades. It is rough, lopsided and strange, a mix of Tolkienesque fantasy, *Star Wars* spaceships and lightsabers, and pure teenage ambition, yet its structure of an open overworld, towns, castles, dungeons and a quest threading them together set a pattern the genre still follows. ## Origins Garriott's first game, [*Akalabeth*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/akalabeth/), had been a hobby project sold in Ziploc bags from a Houston-area ComputerLand before California Pacific picked it up. Its unexpected success, which Garriott says earned him more than his astronaut father's salary, persuaded him to take the next one seriously. He wrote *Ultima* during his freshman year at the University of Texas at Austin, still living at home, with help from a friend, Kenneth W. Arnold. Large parts of the *Akalabeth* code were reused as subroutines for the first-person dungeons. To those Garriott added towns, castles, quests, a plot and a new interface. The program was written in Applesoft BASIC, but Arnold contributed assembly-language routines for a tile-based graphics system that drew the overworld from small repeated pictures, the first computer RPG to use the technique and the root of the look that would define the series. The pair finished in under a year. The game was to be called *Ultimatum*, but that name belonged to a board-game company, so it was shortened. "When I wrote the first game, of course I had no idea there would ever be a second," Garriott later remarked. California Pacific registered the copyright on September 2, 1980, and released the game in June 1981 at $39.95. Its cover, like several later Garriott boxes, was painted by Denis Loubet, an artist Garriott had discovered at [Steve Jackson Games](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/steve-jackson-games/) in Austin. ## How it plays Character creation borrows from the tabletop: distribute points among statistics, then choose one of four races (human, elf, dwarf or the hobbit-like "bobbit") and one of four classes (fighter, cleric, wizard or thief). The overworld is shown from above as a grid of tiles, the dungeons in wireframe first-person perspective inherited from *Akalabeth*. Single keystrokes issue commands: A to attack, B to board. The resource economy is harsh and memorable. Food drains every two steps outside towns, and starving is death. [Hit points](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/hit-points/) can be bought by paying tribute to Sosaria's lords or earned by surviving a dungeon expedition. Each [experience](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/experience-points/) level requires 1,000 points, and a vital item near the end is withheld until level eight. Spells are bought in shops and consumed on use. In the original release, overworld monsters simply appear beside you and attack; the 1986 remake made them roam. Sosaria's eight castles hand out two kinds of quests: visit a landmark for a statistic boost, or descend into a dungeon to slay a particular monster and earn one of the four gems. Then things get stranger. The player must buy a space shuttle, fly into orbit and destroy twenty enemy ships in a first-person space-combat sequence modeled on Doug Neubauer's Atari game *Star Raiders*, which Garriott and Arnold both loved. Only a space ace can rescue a princess, who reveals the time machine; only the time machine reaches Mondain before his gem is finished. Garriott later said he added the spaceflight because he wanted to fill every space on the disk and do everything he possibly could. ## Reception & impact *Softline* judged *Ultima* in 1981 to be the best role-playing game available for the Apple II and "well worth the price," and *Computer Gaming World*'s reviewer called it one of the best computer fantasy role-playing games to date. It sold 20,000 copies by June 1982, fewer than [*Wizardry*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/wizardry/) managed in the same period, and around 50,000 in all. Looking back in 1991 and 1993, *Computer Gaming World* called it "truly epic in scope," among the first games with outdoor settings and conversations with non-player characters, despite an "unbalanced combat system." Its importance lies less in its polish than in its shape. Historians credit *Ultima* as one of the first definitive commercial computer RPGs and among the first [open-world](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/open-world-rpg/) computer games: a single continuous map where the player chose where to go next. It also introduced characters who would become fixtures. Lord British returned from *Akalabeth*, and the bard Iolo and the ranger Shamino made their first appearances. ## Legacy California Pacific was in financial trouble, and Garriott moved on. For *Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress* (1982), whose villain is Mondain's apprentice and lover Minax, he insisted on a boxed release with a printed cloth map, and [Sierra On-Line](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/sierra-on-line/) was the only publisher willing to agree. Sierra also reissued the first *Ultima* for the Atari 8-bit computers in 1983. A royalty dispute over *Ultima II*'s IBM PC port pushed Garriott, his brother Robert, their father Owen and Chuck Bueche to found [Origin Systems](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/origin-systems/), which published [*Ultima III: Exodus*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ultima-iii-exodus/) in 1983. That game completed the "Age of Darkness" trilogy by pitting the player against Exodus, the offspring of Mondain and Minax. In 1986 Origin rewrote the first game in assembly language and released it for the Apple II on December 23 as *Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness*, with faster play, better graphics, new town and castle maps, wandering monsters and separate copper, silver and gold coins. Commodore 64 and MS-DOS versions followed, and this edition is the one most players have encountered since, including in Electronic Arts' *Ultima Collection* of the late 1990s. Japanese publishers carried the game to the MSX2, PC-88, PC-98, Sharp X1 and FM Towns, and a dedicated Apple IIGS port by Vitesse appeared in 1994. The series' ambitions grew quickly: *Ultima III* gave players a [The party](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/party/), and [*Ultima IV*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ultima-iv/) (1985) abandoned the defeat-the-wizard formula altogether for a quest of personal virtue. Even the first game's crude plot left a mark. When [*Ultima Online*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ultima-online/) (1997) needed a fictional reason for running many parallel copies of its world, its designers declared each server a "shard," a fragment of the Gem of Immortality that the Stranger had shattered, and players have called game servers shards ever since. Through the *Ultima* series, which [Yuji Horii](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/yuji-horii/) cited alongside *Wizardry* when designing [*Dragon Quest*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dragon-quest/), the overhead world map of 1981 also travelled to Japan and into the console RPG. ## Did you know? Because all towns in the original release were identical, and all dungeons were randomly generated rather than designed, the 1981 *Ultima* is a much smaller world than it first appears. ## Facts - Its planned name was Ultimatum, until Richard Garriott learned a board-game company already used it. - Kenneth W. Arnold wrote the assembly-language tile graphics, the first use of that technique in a computer RPG. - To win you must become a 'space ace' by destroying 20 enemy ships in a first-person shooter sequence inspired by Star Raiders. - Garriott said he added the spaceflight simply because he wanted to fill every bit of space on the disk. - It introduced Iolo and Shamino, companions who return in nearly every later Ultima. - Ultima Online's lore later explained its many servers, or 'shards', as fragments of Mondain's shattered gem. - Sierra On-Line reissued it for the Atari 8-bit; Origin rewrote it in assembly for the 1986 edition that most players know. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_I:_The_First_Age_of_Darkness) - [The Digital Antiquarian: Ultima IV (series context)](https://www.filfre.net/2014/07/ultima-iv/) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.