It’s been 15 years since the launch of the original Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss and now players can finally get their hands on the latest sequel, Underworld Ascendant, albeit in the form of a pre-alpha build.
GOG has announced that EA has requested they remove the Ultima Underworld and Syndicate series from sale starting next week
Lame, and kind of dumb on EA's part.
GoG is known for being the storefront for older titles, and they have a strong fanbase because of it.
I don't see people flocking to EA's store to play these games.
Paul writes: "Underworld Ascendant is an immersive first person dungeon crawler that is heavily based around the much loved Underworld Ultima in which you play The Avatar (sadly not the airbending variety); a hero tasked with venturing into The Stygian Abyss, in order to do battle with the demon Typhon and his undead hordes."
From PSU: "When Ultima Underworld released on PCs back in 1992, it was a revelation. Developed and produced by the same developer that would go on to create the legendary likes of Deus Ex, System Shock and Bioshock, Ultima Underworld was a first-person RPG that thrust players into a subterranean world filled with sentient, intelligent races, a great story and danger around every corner."
They had me at "Ultima".
Ultima Underworld was one of the greatest games ever made. If they can even come close to it's greatness, this will be a great game. That said, Underworld was great because it was the first of its kind (real 3D dungeon crawler, not lockstep, like Dungeon Master and its ilk), more than anything else. It'll be tough to distance this game from all the great 3D dungeon crawlers that have come since. The dungeon crawling design seemed superior, as well, but it's hard to put a finger on "why" -- maybe it just felt that way because it was new.
Also, unless EA allows them to use the Ultima license, they won't have the awesome content basis of Ultima, but I hope they manage to pull it off.