Richard Garriott has again suggested (jokingly) that all that would be needed is to buy Electronic Arts.

Concerning New World, launched last year, it can be said that although the gaming industry has changed considerably over the previous few years and decades, there is still a demand for new MMOs. Garriott is well-versed in this genre, although it is a little presumptuous to put himself in his games, as he was Lord British in the Ultima series, and Ultima Online was technically the world’s first MMO.

Garriott wrote on Twitter that he thinks a new Ultima Online would be a good idea with the original PvP rules but that the developers would do a better job this time around in protecting the innocents, and encourage users to embrace the danger of straying from the safe path… and he thinks it could be done if someone had a few tens of billions of dollars to buy up Electronic Arts, which owns the IP (and now doesn’t use it almost at all).

Garriott also wants to bring back the single-player Ultima, and once again, Electronic Arts is preventing him from doing so, as they own the rights. But Ultima Online is alive and well and is being kept alive by the same studio that will soon take over Star Wars: The Old Republic (Broadsword). The veteran developer used to pitch the concept to Electronic Arts every 5-10 years or so. They would always say it was a good idea and then say no because they couldn’t or wouldn’t take Garriott’s pitch on board due to internal evaluations…

However, Electronic Arts’ caution is understandable, as Garriott’s last two MMOs were unsuccessful. Tabula Rasa lasted for two years, while Shroud of the Avatar, treated as a spiritual sequel to Ultima Online, never got off the ground, and the rights and assets had to be sold to Catnip Games in 2019 after Garriott resigned as CEO of the original developers Portalarium.

So Ultima Online 2 has about as much chance of winning the lottery as we have of winning it. And we didn’t even buy a ticket.

Source: PCGamer