Retrospective: Ultima IV

Questing inward.

So you're going about your daily business, maybe milking your cows or sharpening your swords or plowing your fields or whatnot. Suddenly, a group of fierce-looking wanderers in badly mismatched armor walks up, and the leader starts grilling you about local politics. Your attempts to exchange polite pleasantries are completely ignored. When they get the information they're looking for, the group stomps off without a word of thanks.

Or maybe you're sitting at home, enjoying a book by the fire or a fine home-cooked meal, when the door flies open and an effeminate youth with spiky purple hair barges in and starts rooting through your china cabinet. Grabbing your grandma's favorite teapot, he dashes out the door before you can even think to call the authorities.

Such is the life of a non-player character in a role-playing game. RPGs have always been fairly lawless places; the player wanders around a strange world, slaughtering monsters, grabbing loot, and buying--or stealing--ever more powerful gear. Little or no thought is given to the ethics of any particular action, the assumption, perhaps, being that the end justifies the means, and trying to save the world (or the universe, or the princess) exempts one from such niceties as honesty, justice, or honor.

Then Ultima IV came along.

The Most Difficult Quest

Designer Richard "Lord British" Garriott had already made a name for himself with the first three Ultima titles. These turn-based role-playing games borrowed rules and mythology from Dungeons & Dragons, infusing them with innovative plots involving space and time travel. They were definitely significant works, and by converting the traditional tabletop experience of D&D to home computers, they paved the way for the PC and console RPGs we know today. But aside from the technological feat of computerizing complex RPG rules, they were hardly revolutionary.

Ultima IV, on the other hand, most definitely was. Not through its technological advances, since it looked hardly better than Ultima III. And not through its fundamental gameplay, since it played like only a slightly evolved version of what Ultima had been doing all along.

No, Ultima IV was a revolution simply because of its theme. Your goal here was not to save the world from an evil magician or a diabolical computer; your goal was to save the world from itself. Lord British, the benevolent ruler of Britannia, notices that his people are lacking in direction and focus in their lives, and puts out a call for a leader to step forth and serve as an example of virtue to the populace. If you wish to become this leader--this avatar of virtue--your job is to learn, study, and implement the Eight Virtues: honesty, compassion, valor, justice, sacrifice, honor, spirituality, and humility.

Walking the Walk

That may sound to you like an unbearable bore. But remember, we said "implement." You didn't just wander the cities and countryside of Britannia studying; rather, you had to actually put these virtues into practice. In essence, Ultima IV created a layer of rules of play that were entirely new to gaming in general and RPGs in particular. After training players over the course of three games to be little more than opportunistic barbarians, Ultima IV forced them to consider every action taken in the game:

You've decimated a group of orcs and the last one is fleeing. Do you finish him off and gain the experience, or let him run and sustain your compassion?

You're out of gold and out of food and losing health with every step. Do you lift gold or food from an unguarded chest in town, or sell one of your hard-won items?

Ultima IV graphics may look antiquated compared to games like Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but the gameplay is still as deep as that of any contemporary title.

You come face to face with a beggar on the streets of teeming Britain. Do you give of your small stash of gold, or ignore him?

Act in a virtuous manner and you'd find yourself closer to your goal; stray from the path and you'd need to work hard to reclaim your virtue. And only by being virtuous could you gain access to the eight Shrines of Virtue and learn information crucial to accessing the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom to finish the game. Yes, that's right--the game ends not with you slaying a foozle but with you reading a book.

The virtues absolutely permeate Ultima IV, from its unique character creation system all the way through to the extremely memorable final battle. (We won't spoil it for you; suffice it to say that your opponent is all but inevitable given the theme of the rest of the game.) When you boot up the game, rather than picking and choosing your character class and stats as in previous Ultimas, you visit a gypsy who presents you with a series of ethical questions. Laying two tarot-like cards down, she poses an ethical dilemma that forces you to choose between one of two different virtues.

For example, say you're an officer of the peace. You see a poor beggar steal a loaf of bread. Do you look the other way out of compassion or report him out of a sense of justice? There's no wrong answer; the system is designed simply to see what values you personally hold most dear. Show a propensity for humility, for example, and your character may turn out to be a shepherd. Favor honor and you may be a paladin. It's a fascinating system that made it clear from the very beginning that this was a role-playing game unlike no other.

An RPG Revolution

But all this talk of virtue should not overshadow the fact that Ultima IV was revolutionary in other ways, too. Take the conversation system, for example. Whereas in previous games (and most similar titles), talking to a non-player character would provide you with a single response, Ultima IV introduced a conversation system that allowed players to ask about specific topics. Certain crucial information in the game could only be gained after learning from one character to ask another character about a specific topic, which made the game feel much more rich and robust than any previous entry in the series.

Ultima IV also introduced a complex magic system, requiring players to collect and mix reagents (a system which, it must be said, plenty of players absolutely hated) and learn specific magic words before casting spells. It introduced the idea of recruiting non-player characters into your party, rather than setting up an entire party at the start of the game. It introduced a field-of-view system that would show onscreen only the areas not blocked by obstacles. And it introduced characters, monsters, locations, and items that would return through the next three Ultima games, and thus earn a special place in the hearts of RPG fans everywhere.

These days, Ultima IV may not look like much. While it was certainly on the cutting edge in its day, with animated characters and monsters and stunning 16-color graphics, compared to modern RPGs the tile-based vistas look laughably simple.

But the story holds up, even still. And the themes resonate even today: Play Ultima IV and you're playing a game that influenced an entire generation of gamers--and game designers. Ask the folks behind Oblivion or World of WarCraft to list their favorite games of all time, and you're almost guaranteed to find Ultima IV on that list. It's is, quite simply, one of the most influential RPGs of all time.

So what are you waiting for? Go find out what you're made of.