Courtesy of Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum, and to the hard work of both him and the team at the Wing Commander CIC — especially Dan Chisarick, who archived the CD on which this material was stored — Ultima Aiera is pleased to present what I suspect is one of the original endgame cutscenes for the “Bob White Plot” version of Ultima 9.

I say “one of” the original cutscenes because, as you can see, this is the Armageddon cutscene spoken of here. The latter half of this scene was used in the release version of the game in three places: the vision triggered by the mirror in Lord British’s bedroom, the vision at the gypsy camp, and the “bad ending” achieved by handing over the Codex Lenses to Blackthorn.

Download the original video:
* Armageddon (MOV) (19.1 MiB, 285 hits)

Dragons and Dragonettes may recall that the planned good ending to the Bob White Plot involved the citizens of Britannia taking shelter from the Guardian and the Armageddon spell on the island of Skara Brae which, protected as it was by the Barrier of Life and the Runes of Virtue, floated off into space away from the shattered world once home to Britannia, in a manner not unlike what could be found in a Roger Dean illustration. This video doesn’t show that happy fate befalling the people of Britannia; their end is rather more dire. Also, the Avatar and Lord British do not get infused into the spell and pass on with its casting; the video ends with them standing there looking rather…remorseful.

All of which leads me to suspect that the Bob White version of Ultima 9 might just have had a rather more branching story than has been known thus far, one in which it was possible to “win” the game (by means of casting Armageddon) without sacrificing the Avatar and without saving the people of Britannia.

Now, a few disclaimers.

The video on display here is a Flash (FLV) transcode of the original MOV-format file, and of relatively low resolution. Image quality is also rather lackluster, and the video (sadly!) has no sound (although the title card suggests that it was meant to have stand-in voices, at least).

Regardless, enjoy. This little video affords an interesting — perhaps tantalizing — glimpse into the development history of the final entry in the Ultima series. This is Ultima history at its finest, and Aiera is indebted to Dan Chisarick, Joe Garrity, Electronic Arts, Mythic Entertainment/BioWare Mythic, Electronic Arts, BanditLOAF and the team at the Wing Commander CIC, and everyone who worked at Origin for it.