Michael Hilborn — AKA A New Breed of Dragon — is a name well known to those who have played through (or who followed the development of) Lazarus. But before there was Lazarus, there was another fantastic work of New Breed’s Ultima-inspired storytelling, which was Ultima: The Dark Core.

What was arguably the first browser-based Ultima spinoff (take that, Lord of Ultima!) is once again available for download here at Aiera, and I have also updated the project entry with some notes and considerations for getting the game running on modern systems. Downloads to compatible Internet browsers (The Dark Core’s requirements are, sadly, very specific) have also been added.

Granted, Lord of Ultima is way outside the canon of the Ultima series, and its game world doesn’t seem to have all that much to do with the Britannia that Ultima fans know and love (a few cities bear classic Britannian names, but that’s about it).

Even so, reviews of it have generally been positive, and its fan base seems to be growing. Sergorn Dragon just alerted me to the existence of a fan-run Lord of Ultima forum. As yet, it’s not heavily trafficked, though it’s certainly doing better than…er…the Sword & Shield (cough).

So if, good reader, you are playing LoU at all, maybe give this one a look.

As noted by the guys at WCCIC, Electronic Arts has announced that Lord of Ultima has been officially released.

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif.–(BUSSINES WIRE)–Phenomic™, an Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) studio, announced today Lord of Ultima^™, a new browser-based online strategy game, is available worldwide for free* starting today. Lord of Ultima immerses players in a brand-new, deeply-rich strategy game set within the Ultima universe. The game introduces innovative social features, such as advanced trading, alliance creation, online chat and community forums, which make for an endlessly entertaining experience.

“Lord of Ultima was designed to ensure that everyone, from strategy newcomers to diehard fans, can make it to the top of the leader board,” said Volker Wertich, Creative Director at Phenomic. “Phenomic is committed to building dynamic communities that delight players as they interact with the game, each other and the legendary world of Ultima.”

To become the Lord of Ultima, players will master the arts of diplomacy and trade, as well as the military activities of spying, plundering, and the takeover of enemy cities. Set in the new world of Caledonia, players start the game as eager conquerors in the early stages of raising an empire, and then move from developing a humble village and evolving it into a prosperous, highly customized capital. Players can flourish as peaceful merchants by trading resources over land or sea and using diplomacy. They can also become feared conquerors, by creating mighty armies of knights and mages to crush enemies.

Lord of Ultima is a free-to-play MTX browser-based game. No download or installation is needed and players do not need to register to play. Lord of Ultima is available in English and German and is playable now by visiting www.lordofultima.com.

Toltec Dragon alerted me to this new game from EA, which appears to be an online strategy game set in the Ultima universe. It’s being developed by EA Phenomic, who made Battleforge…so there’s some fairly serious development firepower behind this thing.

At the moment, there’s not much that I can really tell you Dragons about the game. I’ve signed up for the beta, but can’t seem to log in — the servers are always “full” (or they may not be on yet and that’s just the generic error message being thrown out). Nor can I access the game’s wiki or forums.

And I’m not sure what to think about this whole thing, either. This is apparently supposed to be a broswer-based strategy game, and those generally are far less than awesome (let’s be honest: the best ones are good for a few minutes of distraction, nothing more). At the same time, Phenomic is no second-tier developer…so I’m not sure at all what EA is getting at by enlisting them for this effort.

Would Ultima even render well as a strategy game?

Methinks it’s too early to tell with this one.

Also, Fenyx Dragon noted that Gamasutra had an article up about the game; give it a look.

And finally, from Sergorn Dragon, a possible Lord of Ultima screenshot: