After the release of Ultima II, there came something of a falling-out between Richard Garriott and Sierra On-Line, distributors of the game. Details are sketchy at this late date, but it is worth noting that Sierra published a very simple dungeon crawl for the Commodore VIC-20 called Ultima: Escape From Mt. Drash, with no involvement from Garriott or, indeed, any evidence they sought his permission to use the Ultima name. That may have been a contributing factor to the “divorce.”

In need of a new distributor, and beginning to experience firsthand the seedy underbelly of the major publishing houses of the day, Garriott decided instead to form his own company to directly publish Ultima III with neither interference from above nor the ability for anyone to misrepresent the trademark. Thus was born Origin Systems, Inc., the source for all future developments in the Ultima universe until 1999 – but we’ll get to that ugliness later in this series.

For now, however, let us focus our attention on the third game in the long-running RPG series, which would once again break new ground and take the genre to places we take for granted today, yet were revolutionary for the time.

Exodus: Ultima III (1983): After spending Ultima II running around various periods of Earth history, Ultima III returns us to the fantasy world of Sosaria – now united under Lord British’s rule, rather than the scattered fiefdoms seen in the first game – and puts an end to the time-hopping and anachronisms of the first two games. No more space travel, no more blasters, and best of all, no more ill-advised pop culture references to date the game.

Even better than that, you no longer have to go it alone; you can now create a full-fledged party of up to four adventurers. This was a first for the top-down RPG subgenre; previously, multiple-character parties were the exclusive domain of first-person games (Wizardry, The Bard’s Tale, etc.) due to the percieved difficulty in being able to control multiple onscreen proxies simultaneously. Instead, in Ultima III only the leader of your party is visible for most of the game, and the other three are only seen when battles occur. You issue single movement/attack commands to each of the four characters in semi-real time (you give the command and they perform it immediately, then wait for their next turn before acting again). This is all stuff that later RPGs would take for granted, yet until Ultima III no one else had done it. Once again, Garriott was helping to shape the conventions of an entire genre of video games.

As with the previous two games, the storyline of Ultima III was very basic and really only an afterthought, but back in those days it was enough to get you going. After you polished off Mondain in Ultima I and divorced his protegé Minax from her head in Ultima II, you’d think you could rest easy. Not so; it is discovered that the rumors of Mondain and Minax having considerably more than a master-apprentice relationship were true, and the product of their unholy union, known only as “Exodus,” has set up housekeeping on the Isle of Fire just off the Sosarian mainland. Any ships that go near that island return with crews that are either dead or have had their minds destroyed, and monster activity is back on the rise. Once again, Lord British has sent out the summons for a hero to cleanse the land of this last vestige of Mondain’s evil. If you’ve booted up the game, the hero he has summoned is, of course, you; fortunately, as noted, this time up to three others can join you on your mission. (While you can theoretically go it alone, it is not recommended; you will quickly be overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers, plus you’ll find a need for other characters with different abilities throughout the game.)

A note about character creation: Ultima III has the most diverse range of job classes and character types in the entire series. There are eleven different character types (Alchemist, Barbarian, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Illusionist, Lark, Paladin, Ranger, Thief, and Wizard) and five different races (Bobbit, Dwarf, Elf, Fuzzy, and Human) in addition to three genders (you can choose “Other” in place of male or female), giving a total of 110 possible combinations.

The interface seems a bit awkward by 2007 standards, but you have to remember Garriott and Origin were pretty much making this all up as they went along. Food is a factor, and must be purchased for every member of your party; unlike other games, there is no provision (so to speak) for a “community pool” of rations. Similarly, each character has his or her own separate stash of gold (this at least can be divvied up among the party) and earns EXP based only on any monsters he or she kills individually. This makes leveling up something of a chore, because even your weaker mage-type characters must do some of the wetwork if they ever hope to get the higher-level spells promised their job class. Leveling up is itself a bit of a trick, as it’s not done automatically; you must return to Lord British’s castle and speak with the man himself, who will promote you to the next level if your EXP is high enough (otherwise he’ll send you away with a terse “Experience more!”).

One of the best features of Ultima III is its dungeons, which actually factor into the main plot this time. (In Ultima I dungeons were semi-random and only served as a means to an end; Ultima II had completely irrelevant dungeons that could be ignored entirely.) This time, the underground caverns (there are seven in all) feature enough devious level design, hidden areas, and traps to keep any Wizardry fan happy – there are pitfalls, invisible doors, food-stealing gremlins in fixed locations, and fountains that could either be restorative or fatal. You’ll want to explore these dungeons to get four “marks,” which bestow special abilities (the ability to walk through lava and lethal force-fields, for example) that you’ll be needing in order to win the game. At the bottom of one dungeon you’ll also meet someone known as the Time Lord (TARDIS not included), who will give you the key to Exodus’s destruction.

You’ll also have to take to the seas and find a whirlpool, which randomly moves around the world. You’ll want to – seriously – sail directly into it. After a near-death experience, you’ll wake up in a new world called Ambrosia. This mountainous continent is the only place in the world where you can raise your attributes, at one of four shrines dedicated to Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, and Intelligence. (You’ll need tons of money to do this; raising a stat by just one point will set you back a hundred bucks! Per character!) Each shrine also contains one of four cards that are vital to the destruction of Exodus, so coming to Ambrosia is essential even if you’re not interested in stat-mongering.

After being briefly introduced to the concept in the form of Ultima II’s Time Doors, III formally introduces the Moongates to the mythos. Notice, at the top of these screenshots, two numbers in parentheses. These represent the phases of the twin moons Trammel and Felucca, and their waxing and waning controls where Moongates appear and where they send you. Trammel (the left moon) determines which of the seven Moongates is open at any one time, while Felucca (which changes phases three times faster than Trammel) tells you where you’ll end up after going through that Moongate. Everything happens on a set schedule, so with careful note-taking you can work out for yourself exactly when and where these “warp points” appear. The moons also open up some interesting secrets, such as a town in the deep forest, Dawn, that in true Brigadoon fashion only appears when both moons are full (phase “4″).

Even a little detail like only being able to see what your onscreen character would see was incorporated into Ultima III’s graphics engine, as you can see in this screenshot. In real life you wouldn’t be able to see through mountains or thick forest, so the game “blacks out” those tiles, leaving you with only what’s in your immediate line of sight. This sounds tricky, but when you actually play the game you’ll understand what’s going on here. Note that some of the most useful secrets in the game can only be found by braving the deep forests (where you can only see for one square around you in any direction) to find well-hidden people and clearings.

Ultima III was the first game in the series to become a true breakaway hit, and cemented Richard Garriott’s position as one of the top game designers in the industry. It was especially popular in Japan, helping to launch the popularity of the RPG as both a game genre and a storytelling platform. As a matter of fact, the first “true” RPG for the Famicom console was directly inspired by Ultima III in terms of gameplay and graphics style. That game was Dragon Quest, which would go on to become legendary in its own right, and would inspire just about every other console RPG there ever was, up to and including Final Fantasy. So it’s no exaggeration to say that Ultima III may very well be the single most important RPG ever made, simply because of what it inspired!

In all, Ultima III has a few annoyances for the gamer used to the modern amenities of the RPG genre, but if you perservere you will get a real sense of accomplishment when you finally attain a major goal, or solve a mystery, or fight your way through town guards to reach hidden caches of treasure. In truth, if you’re an Ultima newbie looking for a good jumping-off point to understand the series and its enduring popularity, this is the one you should probably play first – forget the first two games. For all practical purposes, this is the first Ultima, with I and II more like rough drafts for the graduate thesis that was III.

Fortunately, Ultima III may well be the most ported game in the enitre series, so finding a copy shouldn’t be much of a problem. Besides the PC and Apple II, versions (official and otherwise) exist for the Atari 800, Commodore 64, Macintosh, Amiga, NES, MSX, ZX Spectrum, GameBoy Color, and even PalmOS. If you can play games on it, chances are there’s an Exodus port available for it! (Note: As with Ultima II, the original PC graphics were done in drab CGA. The screenshots in this article were taken with a fan patch active that upgrades the look to a more colorful EGA pallete based on the C64 and Apple II versions.)

Next time: If Ultima III made Richard Garriott’s name famous in the industry, Ultima IV would make it immortal. Tune in next time for the skinny on one of the most daringly different RPGs ever created.

If you liked that, try...

1. Retro-Active Special: Rule Britannia! The History of Ultima (Part the Second)
2. Retro-Active Special: The History of Ultima, Part IV: The RPG Grows Up
3. Retro-Active: The Better-Late-Than-Never History of Ultima, Part IX: Super Avatar Bros.?
4. Retro-Active Special: Rule Britannia! The History of Ultima (Part 1 of Many)
5. Retro-Active Special: The History of Ultima, Part V: Lord British Takes a Holiday

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