Richard Garriott, creator of the seminal Ultima series of RPGs, has considered giving the series the TTRPG treatment in the past but isn't sure it would make any money.
The outspoken and occasionally controversial designer has never been shy to casually comment on hypothetical projects, floating a team-up with fellow game design veteran Brian Fargo back in April 2024 and, a year before that, saying he wanted to make Ultima Online 2 to my reluctant delight.
Anyway, Garriott's latest non-committal Twitter pitch is an Ultima TTRPG. He was asked on Twitter if he's ever considered such a thing, and here's his response: "Yes! But… not sure my plan would be commercially successful. May be worth finding out."
Yes! But… not sure my plan would be commercially successful. May be worth finding out. https://t.co/olSrFhxUixJanuary 21, 2025
Being thematically quite similar to Dungeons & Dragons and Baldur's Gate, Ultima definitely seems like a good fit for a TTRPG adaptation, but unfortunately I do agree with Garriott that it'd be a tough sell to modern markets. TTRPGs are going as strong as ever, but Ultima, as sad as I am to say as someone who did nothing but play Ultima Online between the ages of nine to 13, is another story entirely.
There hasn't been a new Ultima game since 2012, and there hasn't been a good one since way further back than that. There have even been a number of Ultima spiritual successors, including Garriott's own Shroud of the Avatar, and none of them have really taken hold in the same way that the legacy RPGs defined their respective genres.
Maybe I'm wrong and one day there will be an Ultima game on our list of the best tabletop RPGs.
