Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness Unity Engine Conversion

An Ultima enthusiast who goes by the name David Reese, according to the website’s copyright, has announced his plans to port the original Ultima game into the Unity Engine. As this is a passion project, the time frame for its completion is a bit nebulous. Regardless, this is a curious undertaking. Here are the planned features:

Utilization of the XU4 tileset designed by Josh Steele for all overworld and town maps, which will replace the classic 16-color EGA tileset used in the original game.

Simplified user-interface utilizing icons instead of keyboard keys to interact with the game world.

Planned releases for both PC and Android with platform-specific control schemes (keyboard+mouse for PC and touchscreen for Android).

Utilization of modern Ultima music tracks where appropriate and available. I have been listening to the U5: Lazerus soundtrack while working on this and feel some of it’s tracks match the mood of the game so I plan on reaching out to the composer at some point in the hopes of securing permission to use the soundtrack.

Implementation of a quest log/journal which should ease the initial learning curve/difficulty of the game and make it more accessible to new players.