So, who wants to feel old this fine Sunday afternoon? Ultima Online has officially turned 26 years old as of today, and if you remember it, then congrats, you’ve lived through the entire span of games since the term MMORPG was first coined and the genre blew up. Whether you want to remember it all is another story!
EA’s Broadsword team is celebrating this week with the release of a small patch, Update 116, which grants characters over 30 days old a 26th anniversary gift bag. “The bag will contain a 26th Anniversary card from a member of the Dev, GM, or EM team as well as a token to redeem a collectible wall poster. Wall posters showcase box art from all Ultima & Ultima Online releases over the years,” the studio says. “The older the game, expansion, or booster’s release date – the more rare it is to obtain.”
There was a bit more hoopla for the game’s 25th birthday last year, admittedly; we wrote about our experiences back then too.
The UO team, of course, is still in development on the long-delayed New Legacy server, a teeny-tiny alpha for which is apparently still ongoing. New Legacy is meant to be an alternate ruleset starter server for new and curious players looking to experience the game in a new way. Current subscribers were offered a brief window to enter an in-game lottery for a test invite, and Broadsword apparently selected 50 of them at random for the test, which is under an NDA – so don’t expect to hear anything just yet.
Happy birthday, UO!
