So listen, an MMORPGs 27th birthday is not a big deal, except in the sense that I can count on less than one hand how many games have actually made it to that anniversary. It’s not 20th or 25th. It’s not 30th. At best, it’s now in its late 20s, right?
Well, happy late 20s to Ultima Online, which launched 27 years ago today.
As we’ve been chronicling, UO has been in a bit of a holding pattern the last few years, as in 2020, Broadsword announced that in lieu of typical updates, it would be working on a new legacy ruleset server, New Legacy, designed to simplify the game for modern gaming sensibilities. Development has dragged on four years now, long past the original launch window, but the team did finally get it into beta testing this past summer, and now it’s kicking off a final stress test today, with the full launch presumably next week.
UO has also unwittingly offered a bit of drama this year, as Ultima creator Richard Garriott has intimated on social media that he’s trying to get the game back.
When UO turned 25, I wrote a long column about what it meant to me – and how it got me into MMOs, such that I’m sitting here writing about them all these years later. So I don’t need to do that again! Instead, I present to you the header image for this column, taken this past summer during the early New Legacy betas. For those who don’t know, Ultima Online had player-writable books all the way back in 1997, so don’t let anyone tell you it’s too hard for a modern MMO to do it. But of course, when you give players freedom to write in books, they’re going to troll, as one intrepid player clearly did here, leaving the book for another tester to find. As the saying goes, teach a man to fish, and he’ll spell F U C K on your bridge!
Happy birthday, Ultima Online. Enjoy the new anniversary rewards, folks!
