Lord British Returns With His ‘Ultima’ Successor ‘Shroud of the Avatar’
Lord British’s Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues is, according to Garriott, an attempt to “reinvent the classic fantasy role-playing experience.” Anyone familiar with the long running Ultima series that culminated with the Ultimate Online, one of the first significant graphical MMOs, will see much that’s familiar. Psychological profiling at the beginning of the game to determine what your character is like; swords, sorcery, armor, dragons, etc; a multiplayer component in addition to being able to play the game alone and offline; and even the opportunity to build your own home in the game. Like Garriott’s old classics as well, Shroud of the Avatar will come with all sorts of trinkets like a cloth map. No word on whether or not the game will be available as a cassette tape.
While it doesn’t go into specifics, the staff making the game has an impressive resume, with former members of BioWare, Cryptic Studios, and even smaller cult teams like Airtight Games cited.
“This is a chance to go back to my roots and do an Ultima-like game, as well as bring in some modern sensibilities to it,” Garriott told Games Industry International, “Both in what I think is good storytelling technique that we didn’t have in those days, and as well as the literal technology that we have now that we didn’t have back in those days. And to rectify a few of the errors that crept into role-playing games, or at least some of the things that way too over-trodden in the last few years.”
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