Produced by: Chris V. and Adam V.
Website: The Official Ultima7: Part 3

Another project that just didn’t quite make it (projected release date: 2002), this “third part” to the Ultima 7 lexicon involved an event that transpired between the moment that the Avatar was snatched by the Guardian (at the end of Serpent Isle) and the moment that the Guardian dropped the Avatar onto the world of Pagan (at the beginning of Ultima 8).

From the project website: the Avatar underwent a rebirth of his soul between Serpent Isle and Pagan. During the Avatar’s interdimensional travel, which most likely occurred through some form of a moongate, his soul, or lifethread, was rewoven into another dimension. While his body was clearly in the hand of the Guardian, during that brief instant of time between worlds, his soul was reborn and lived a life in another world…

…What has happened is that someone or something has woven an arcane spell, a spell from a world long forgotten, a world the Virtues never reached. Someone has summoned a ‘spiritual net’ that has extracted the soul of the Avatar from his body and rewoven it into a new body, in a new world. The reborn Avatar has no memory of his previous life or that he even is the Avatar. The soul of the Avatar will be burned down to its core and reforged in new lands, in the forgotten and mysterious Lands of the Dark Unknown.

Produced by: GM Draugr
Website: Soznet

This intriguing project was making use of an Ultima Online FreeShard to re-tell the story, in an online-game format, of Ultima 3.

As proven by Ultima Legacy, the Ultima Online world can be modified easily enough, and so this development team had begun to change the world map of whichever UO version they were using (one assumes it would be one of the more current incarnations) to be Britannia, circa Ultima 3, and had begun implementing the plot of that classic game into their world.

Unfortunately, the project seems to have stopped development, as there has been no “news” from the team since 2005, and they have not released any game files or demos. The project maps were completed, however, and can be purchased for a nominal fee.

Produced by: Razimus (Dr. Pepper Dragon, nee Perivolcanae Ze Dragon)
Website: UO to U7

A brand-new project (begun March 2, 2007!) that just didn’t last, the goal of which was to rebuild the Ultima 7 world (and Serpent Isle as well) using the Ultima Online engine. One can only assume that the end result of this project would have been an online-playable version of this classic Ultima two-part.

Alas, that is not for us to know.

Produced by: Shattered Moon
Website: Classic Ultima Online
Releases:
* U4 Multiplayer Client (2.6 MiB, 248 hits)

This promising reworking of the Ultima 4 engine does what U6 Online did for Ultima 6 – launches the classic single-player RPG into the realm of online gaming! It has become part of a larger project called Classic Ultima Online, which sounds as though its aim is to port several different Ultima titles into an online framework.

The project is currently in an alpha stage, and there is a client available. You can download the client from Aiera, or through Dennis DeMarco’s website.

To play: launch the client, specify u4m.demarco.com as the game server, and then create a player.

This project was formerly known as “Ultima 4 Multiplayer“.

Produced by: Azmodean

This project came and went pretty quickly, unfortunately. It was conceived in the days prior to the release of Dungeon Siege, and its goal was to remake the complete Ultima 7 story — both Black Gate and Serpent Isle — into one unified narrative using that game engine. However, by the time Dungeon Siege actually did release, the project had essentially disappeared — all that remains is this banner graphic.

Produced by: Whiplash
Website: Project entry at Mod DB

I found this project on Mod DB just recently, although it began its time there back in February 2006.

It seems to have stalled only a month after it began, which is a shame because it was a promising-sounding idea indeed. Okay, the developer can perhaps be faulted for choosing an unoriginal name, but that aside the idea was interesting: re-making Ultima from within the Source engine of Half Life 2 fame.

Unfortunately, the only thing the project seems to have been able to release was the logo visible here.

Produced by: Zonker

This was a project being worked on by the same person who made the Ultima 4 remake, Avatarship, for Neverwinter Nights. Unfortunately, shortly after the project was announced, the developer’s website was taken down, and has yet to reappear.

Produced by: Mike Morrato

This was a Neverwinter Nights-based remake of Ultima 7 that appeared a few years ago, and for a time looked highly promising. Unlike some other NWN-based remakes, which use either a minimal amount of custom content or just the base tilesets that ship with NWN, the developer here was making heavy use of custom hak paks to give Britannia a much more involved, immersive feel.

What is perhaps less known about NWN to many people is that when the two expansion packs were released, and then the custom-content compilation called the Community Expansion Pack (‘CEP’ for short) after those, this caused conflicts with a number of older hak paks — especially ones that included a lot of custom-made placeable scenery objects — as identically referenced resources were overwritten. The exact technical details of why this is should be apparent to anyone with passing experience with database entries.

At any rate, this project was beset by a number of such conflicts, and while these were not the only reason for the project’s eventually being scrapped, they certainly did contribute.

Produced by: CJB

This was an Exult-based, Ultima-inspired game that was supposed to allow you to play the role of Batlin prior to his being defeated by the Avatar. The project gave no concrete notice of their demise; their web host took the page down at some point, however, and they have yet to re-appear.

Produced by: WindWalker

This was a Dungeon Siege-based spinoff that was supposed to chronicle the travels of Lord Blackthorn after his being banished by Lord British in the conclusion of events in Ultima 5.

In the early part of 2004, the project mysteriously went offline, and it only emerged somewhat later that the project leader had joined another Dungeon Siege project — The Road to Allysium, which also appears to have died — and stopped work on this project.

A few screenshots are about all that’s left.

Produced by: Jaakko Peltonen
Website: Cancellation notice

This project was supposed to be a remake of Ultima 4 using a home-made, Baldur’s Gate-style engine. Unfortunately, the producer could not get legal permission from EA to continue with the project, and so as of September 17, 2004, he has shut it down.

Because of the copyrighted nature of some of the material used in the project, he has not released any files to Aiera, and so all that functionally remains of the project is the screenshot that adorns this article.

Produced by: Team Exile
Website: Exile

With an eye to correcting or smoothing out many of the plot inconsistencies that plagued Ultima 8 (and possibly even implementing a version of the “Lost Vale” storyline), Team Exile undertook this ambitious remake using Neverwinter Nights.

Unfortunately, development has stopped on the project, and Aiera has been unable to get copies of even the partially-completed game from the Exile team.

Produced by: Major_Error

Agape was being produced by the same team that made the recent Ultima 8 Demo. However, in a dramatic shift, the project changed hands entirely…though ultimately, to no effect.

This domain was actually the host for the site, although I have since pulled the site down, and have heard no protestations from the developer over my having done so. Because of this, I can only conclude that this project is dead.

Produced by: DarkIllusion
Website: Morrowind: Underworld

I was alerted to this mod by an anonymous contact, and I have to say that it was certainly an interesting development at the time. This appeared to be an essentially completed Morrowind-based remake of Ultima: Underworld (the project authors noted that there were a few bugs to correct on their site, mostly related to combat damage).

It has been abandoned since 2004, however, and I’ve yet to succeed in tracking down any of the released files from the project, so until such time as I am able, it passes into the Graveyard.

Produced by: Taz
Website: Morrowind Summit

A project to re-create Ultima Undeworld as a mod for Morrowind.