This is practically the fun of it, and is of course what we'll be doing before taking the most direct, underhanded, and gamist approach to becoming the Avatar.īecause the Ultima games are kind of meant to be played in blocks. You can be a complete dick until you're ready to start making nice with the people and finding your inner Avatar. Of course, that's the only way you'll eventually win. The only way to win this game is to become a morally upstanding person. The heart of the game is a quest to become the Avatar, a moral and spiritual leader to the people of the land and a hero who embodies each of the eight Virtues - Honesty, Compassion, Spirituality, Sacrifice, Honor, Valor, Justice, and Humility - and the associated principles of Truth, Love, and Courage. There is no final boss and no ultimate evil. There is no evil force at work in the Britannia of Ultima IV. So Garriott set out to create a game with a different kind of objective. According to him, part of the inspiration for the game was objections raised over previous games, which largely encouraged or at least failed to punish immoral actions like theft and murder, as was pretty common in hack-and-slash RPGs of the 80s. Garriott had been responsible for four RPGs before this point, the proto-Ultima Akalabeth and Ultimas I through III. Like most Ultima games, this one is the result of Richard "Lord British" Garriott's fevered and somewhat insane but admirably powerful imagination and relatively competent coding skills, plus the contribution of various members of what would eventually become Origin Systems. Ultima IV (later subtitled Quest of the Avatar, which is the title it carries most of the time now) is the first of the "modern" Ultima series and the game which started up most of the thematic elements that would follow the series to its ignominous end, like the Avatar, the Virtues, the specific companions, etc.
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