# Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss - Work: Action RPG - Date: March 1992 (MS-DOS) - Made by: Richard Garriott (Ultima creator; helped fit the game into the series) - Houses: Origin Systems - Platforms: MS-DOS, PlayStation (Japan, 1997 remake), Pocket PC (2002) - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ultima-underworld/ > A tiny New England studio's 1992 'dungeon simulation' let players look up, jump, swim and fight in a texture-mapped 3D Abyss beneath Britannia — and changed first-person games forever. **Why it matters:** Ultima Underworld is often cited as the first role-playing game with first-person action in a true 3D environment and the first 'immersive sim', a lineage that runs through The Elder Scrolls, System Shock, Deus Ex and BioShock. ## Quick answers **When was Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss first released?** Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss was first released in March 1992 (MS-DOS). **Who created Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss?** Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss was made by Richard Garriott (ultima creator; helped fit the game into the series). **Who published or developed Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss?** Origin Systems. **What kind of work is Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss?** Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss is an action RPG in the First-Person Dungeon Crawlers ('Blobbers'), Action RPGs & Hack-and-Slash and Western Computer RPGs (CRPG) tradition, released for MS-DOS, PlayStation (Japan, 1997 remake) and Pocket PC (2002). **Why is Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss important?** Ultima Underworld is often cited as the first role-playing game with first-person action in a true 3D environment and the first 'immersive sim', a lineage that runs through The Elder Scrolls, System Shock, Deus Ex and BioShock. ## Overview *Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss* is an action role-playing game developed by Blue Sky Productions — soon to be renamed Looking Glass — and published by [Origin Systems](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/origin-systems/) for MS-DOS in March 1992. The player is the Avatar, hero of the [Ultima](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ultima-iv/) series, banished into the Great Stygian Abyss to rescue a baron's kidnapped daughter. The whole game takes place in that multi-level dungeon, drawn in real-time, texture-mapped 3D in which the player can look up and down, jump, swim and move freely rather than stepping from square to square. Its makers did not call it a role-playing game so much as a "dungeon simulation." Objects obey simple physics, weapons wear out, torches burn down, the Avatar must eat and sleep, and many problems can be solved in more than one way. It is frequently cited as the first RPG with first-person action in a 3D world, and as the first "immersive sim." ## Origins Paul Neurath conceived the game at Origin in 1989, just after finishing *Space Rogue*, which alternated 2D tile-based role-playing with 3D space flight. He loved [Wizardry](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/wizardry/) but found its abstract visuals an obstacle to belief, and he saw FTL's [Dungeon Master](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dungeon-master/) as "a glimpse into the future." In spring 1990 he founded Blue Sky Productions in Salem, New Hampshire, with programmer Doug Church, then an MIT student, and artist Doug Wike. Development began in May 1990. Chris Green of Lerner Research supplied a texture-mapping algorithm, and within about a month the team had a prototype, which they showed at the June 1990 Consumer Electronics Show. Origin signed the game that summer and suggested setting it in the Ultima universe; [Richard Garriott](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/richard-garriott/) helped fit it into the series. The small team — joined by Church's MIT friend Dan Schmidt — built a new engine with varying floor heights, sloped surfaces, texture-mapped floors and ceilings, and a view that could tilt. With no fixed plan, they iterated constantly, writing four movement systems and several combat systems before they were done. Origin paid little attention for months, and rumors of cancellation spread after two producers came and went, until Warren Spector took over and became the project's champion. The final four months were spent in a cramped, drafty basement office in Somerville, Massachusetts. The game cost about $400,000 against a $30,000 advance. ## How it plays The Abyss first appeared in [Ultima IV](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ultima-iv/) as the resting place of the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom. By the time of *Underworld*, set after *Ultima VI*, it holds the ruins of a utopian colony founded by a man named Cabirus, who hoped to unite many races under all eight virtues but died before he could distribute eight virtue-imbued talismans. The colony collapsed into feuding factions of humans, goblins, trolls and others, and a wizard named Tyball has seized the baron's daughter. The player creates a single character, choosing [class](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/character-class/) and skills from swordplay to bartering and lockpicking. Combat is real-time: holding the mouse button longer delivers a harder blow, and where the cursor sits determines whether the Avatar slashes, bashes or thrusts, while hidden dice rolls decide whether the blow lands. Spells are cast by combining runestones found in the dungeon, and more than forty exist, some undocumented. An automap fills itself in as the player explores and accepts handwritten notes. [NPCs](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/non-player-character/) can be talked to through dialogue menus and traded with, monsters sometimes flee, and stealth can avoid a fight entirely. ## Reception & impact *Ultima Underworld* was not an immediate commercial success, and Origin scaled back its marketing, but word of mouth carried it to nearly 500,000 sales. It won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1992, and *Computer Gaming World* named it Role-Playing Game of the Year. *Dragon* wrote that calling it "the best dungeon game we've ever played is quite an understatement," while Scorpia called it "the dungeon trek of the future." Its technical influence was immediate. Accounts differ on how much, but id Software's texture mapping in *Catacomb 3-D*, forerunner of *Wolfenstein 3D*, was influenced by the Blue Sky demo. Gamasutra later argued that every 3D RPG "from Morrowind to World of Warcraft" shares it as a common ancestor. ## Legacy Origin kept its mainline games in top-down 2D — [Ultima VII](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ultima-vii/) appeared the same spring — but Looking Glass followed with *Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds* (1993) and then *System Shock*. The design ideas spread widely: [Bethesda](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/bethesda-softworks/)'s [The Elder Scrolls: Arena](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-elder-scrolls-arena/) is among the games it influenced, along with *Deus Ex*, *Half-Life* and *BioShock*, whose designer Ken Levine has credited it as his inspiration; Toby Gard cited it when designing *Tomb Raider*. Arkane's *Arx Fatalis* began as a pitch for a third *Underworld*, and in 2015 Neurath's new studio, OtherSide Entertainment, announced *Underworld Ascendant*, released in 2018. ## Facts - The team was advanced $30,000 to make the game, but it cost about $400,000, partly funded by Paul Neurath's Space Rogue royalties. - Its texture-mapping demo at the summer 1990 Consumer Electronics Show left Origin producer Warren Spector, in his words, 'totally floored.' - The team crunched through its final winter in a drafty, poorly heated basement office in Somerville, Massachusetts. - Using a lit torch on an ear of corn makes popcorn. - Skills are raised by typing mantras such as 'Om Cah' at shrines. - It was not an immediate hit, but word of mouth pushed sales to nearly 500,000 copies. - Its music, by George 'The Fat Man' Sanger and Dave Govett, changed with the player's actions. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_Underworld:_The_Stygian_Abyss) - [Looking Glass Studios (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Glass_Studios) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.