Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss is a 1992 action role-playing game created by Blue Sky Productions (later known as Looking Glass Studios) and released by Origin Systems. The game is set in the fantasy world of the Ultima series. The story takes place inside the Great Stygian Abyss, a large cave system that holds the remains of a failed utopian civilization. Players take on the role of the Avatar, the main character of the Ultima series, and try to rescue a baron’s kidnapped daughter.
Ultima Underworld was the first role-playing game to use first-person action in a 3D environment. It allowed players to look up and down, which was a new feature at the time. The game mixed simulation-style gameplay with ideas from earlier role-playing games, such as Wizardry and Dungeon Master. Because of this, the developers called it a "dungeon simulation." The game does not follow a fixed path, and players can explore and make choices in new ways.
The game sold almost 500,000 copies and was added to many "Hall of Fame" lists. It influenced game companies like Bethesda Softworks and Valve, and inspired games such as Deus Ex and BioShock. A sequel, Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds, was released in 1993. A new game in the series, Underworld Ascendant, came out in late 2018.
Gameplay
Ultima Underworld is a role-playing video game (RPG) that is played from a first-person perspective in a 3D world. The main goal is to explore a large, multi-level dungeon where the game takes place. Players use a mouse that can move freely to interact with the game world and an icon-based interface on the heads-up display (HUD). Each icon has a specific purpose, such as using the Look icon to examine objects closely or the Fight icon to prepare weapons. Players can explore the game in any order, solving puzzles and completing quests as they choose. A map that fills automatically records what players have seen above a certain brightness level. Players can carry light sources to see more clearly in dark areas. Exploratory actions include looking up and down, jumping, and swimming.
Players start the game by creating a character and choosing traits like gender, class, and skills. Skills include fighting with weapons, bartering, and picking locks. Characters gain experience points by completing combat, quests, and exploration. When enough experience points are earned, the character levels up, gaining more hit points and mana. Experience points are needed to use mantras at shrines in the game. Mantras are statements, like "Om Cah," that improve specific skills when typed. Simple mantras are listed in the game manual, while more complex ones are hidden in the game world. An inventory on the HUD shows the items and weapons the player carries, limited by weight. Players equip items using a paper doll system, where items are dragged onto a picture of the character.
Combat happens in real time, and players can use melee or ranged weapons. To attack, players hold the mouse over the screen and click, pressing longer to deal more damage. Some weapons have different attack types based on where the mouse is clicked, such as a jab near the bottom of the screen or a slash in the middle. Dice rolls determine weapon accuracy. Enemies may flee when near death, and stealth mechanics can help avoid combat. Players cast spells by combining runestones, which must be found in the game world. Over forty spells exist, some not fully described, with effects ranging from causing earthquakes to enabling flight.
The developers wanted Ultima Underworld to feel like a realistic and interactive "dungeon simulation" rather than a typical RPG. For example, some objects have no use, and a lit torch can be used on corn to make popcorn. Weapons wear out over time, and the player must eat and rest. Light sources burn out unless turned off before sleeping. A physics system allows items to bounce when thrown. The game includes non-player characters (NPCs) who can be interacted with by choosing dialogue options. Most NPCs have items they are willing to trade. The game was designed to give players many strategies to use and allows for unexpected gameplay experiences through its simulation systems.
Plot
Ultima Underworld takes place in Britannia, the fantasy world of the Ultima series. The game is set inside a large, underground dungeon called the Great Stygian Abyss. The entrance to the dungeon is located on the Isle of the Avatar, an island ruled by Baron Almric. The Abyss first appeared in Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, where it holds the player's final goal, the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom.
Ultima Underworld occurs after the events of Ultima VI: The False Prophet. Between these games, a man named Cabirus tried to build a utopian colony inside the Abyss. In the Ultima series, each of the eight settlements represents one of eight virtues. Cabirus wanted to create a ninth settlement that would represent all virtues. To do this, he brought together different cultures and races to live in peace and planned to give each group one of eight magical artifacts that represented virtues. However, Cabirus died before distributing the artifacts and left no instructions. Without guidance, the colony fell into chaos and war, and the artifacts were lost. At the time of Ultima Underworld, the Abyss contains the remains of Cabirus’s colony, which is now inhabited by groups of humans, goblins, trolls, and others who do not get along.
Before the game begins, two wizard brothers, Garamon and Tyball, accidentally summon a demon called the Slasher of Veils while experimenting with travel between different worlds. Garamon is used as bait to trap the demon in a room filled with virtue. However, the demon offers Tyball great power if he betrays Garamon. Tyball agrees, but the betrayal fails. Garamon is killed but manages to trap the demon inside the room. Because Tyball lacks virtue, he cannot enter the room alone and plans to sacrifice Baron Almric’s daughter, Arial, at the doorway to gain access.
At the start of the game, the ghost of Garamon appears in the Avatar’s dreams, warning of a great danger in Britannia. The Avatar allows Garamon to take him to the Isle of the Avatar, where he witnesses Tyball kidnapping Arial. Tyball escapes, leaving the Avatar to be captured by the Baron’s guards. The guards take the Avatar to Baron Almric, who banishes him to the Great Stygian Abyss to rescue Arial. After the introduction, the Avatar explores the dungeon and finds remnants of Cabirus’s colony. Possible tasks include deciding the fate of two warring goblin tribes, learning a language, or playing an instrument to complete a quest. Eventually, the Avatar defeats Tyball and rescues Arial.
As Tyball dies, he reveals that he had planned to trap the Slasher of Veils inside Arial to stop it from destroying the world. Arial asks the Avatar to prevent the demon from escaping and uses magic to return to the surface to help others leave. With help from Garamon’s ghost, the Avatar collects the eight talismans of Cabirus and throws them into a volcano at the base of the Abyss. The energy from the talismans allows Garamon’s spirit to open a portal, sending the Slasher of Veils to another dimension. The Avatar is pulled into the portal but escapes back to the Isle of the Avatar, just as the volcano erupts. At the end of the game, Garamon’s spirit reveals that he teleported the inhabitants of the Abyss to another cave.
Development
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Ultima Underworld was first thought of in 1989 by Paul Neurath, an employee of Origin Systems. He had just finished working on a game called Space Rogue, which combined parts of 2D tile-based role-playing games and 3D space flight simulations. Neurath said that Space Rogue was the first step in combining RPG and simulation elements, and he believed this was a promising direction. However, he felt that the way these elements were combined in Space Rogue was not smooth, and he wanted to create a more immersive experience.
He had played a lot of D&D and had read many fantasy books, including works by Howard, Leiber, Vance, Zelazny, Le Guin, and Tolkien. Tolkien's description of Moria especially caught his attention and seemed like a good setting for a game.
Neurath had enjoyed role-playing video games like Wizardry, but he found their simple and abstract visuals made it hard to believe in the game's world. He believed that the detailed first-person view in Dungeon Master was a "glimpse into the future," and he wanted to create a fantasy role-playing game that followed this example. In early 1990, Neurath wrote a design document for a game called Underworld. It included descriptions such as "goblins on the prows of rowboats tossed in the waves, shooting arrows at the player above on a rope bridge swinging in the wind." He hired Doug Wike, a former Origin employee, to create concept art. Wike made a short, hand-drawn animation using Deluxe Paint Animation that showed the game's interface and a creature moving toward the player. This animation helped define the game's direction and was used as a reference throughout development. That spring, Neurath started a company called Blue Sky Productions in Salem, New Hampshire, with the goal of creating Underworld. One of the first employees was Doug Church, who was studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The team consisted of Doug Church as the programmer, Doug Wike as the lead artist, and Paul Neurath as the lead designer. Development began in May 1990.
One early challenge was the use of texture mapping. Neurath had tried this on an Apple II computer in the late 1980s but had not been successful. He believed that the more powerful IBM PCs of the time might be able to handle it. He contacted Chris Green, a programmer from Lerner Research, who had worked with him before. Green created a working algorithm. Using the Space Rogue engine, Green's algorithm, assembly code from Lerner Research's Car and Driver, and original programming, the Blue Sky team completed a prototype of Underworld in about a month. Neurath described the prototype as "fast, smooth, and [featuring] true texture mapped walls, though the ceiling and floor were flat shaded and the corridors and rooms were all 10' [3.0 m] high—it looked a lot like Wolfenstein-3D in fact." The team showed it at the June 1990 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and impressed Origin Systems. Origin producer Warren Spector later said, "I remember Paul showing me that demo … at CES and being totally floored by it. None of us had ever seen anything like it." The two companies reached a publishing agreement that summer, and Origin suggested that the game be reworked to fit into the Ultima universe. The team agreed, and the game was renamed Ultima Underworld. While Spector had hoped to produce the game, he was not assigned to the role; and he later said that he "sort of watched [the other producer] jealously from the sidelines."
After the game was renamed, Doug Church recruited Dan Schmidt, a college friend who had just graduated from MIT, as a programmer. The team stopped using the Space Rogue engine and created a new one that could display a believable 3D world—one with varying heights and texture-mapped floors and ceilings. Church estimated that the first year of production was dedicated to creating the game's technological base. However, Neurath stated that the team spent "comparatively little" time on the game's technology, and that "most was spent working on game features, mechanics, and world building." Their ultimate goal was to create the "finest dungeon game, a game that was tangibly better than any of the long line of dungeon games that came before it." Each member of the small team assumed multiple roles; for example, the game's first two levels were designed by Paul Neurath, while the rest were built by artists, designers, and programmers. According to Schmidt, Neurath contracted a writer to create the game's story and dialogue, but the relationship was a "mismatch"; and so the team decided to write the plot themselves. Alongside his programming work, Church co-wrote the game's story with Dan Schmidt, and he gradually took on project leader responsibilities. Writing duties for each level were given to the person who created that level; Schmidt's role was to edit the dialogue of each level to fit with that of the others. Schmidt also created the game's sound effects, which were synthesized—no recorded sounds were used—in a graphical sound editor. Neurath, who Church said was "very day to day at the beginning of the project," became more involved with the company's business and finances.
Church explained that the core of the project was its "dynamic creation." He noted that the team had "no set of rules … or pre-written plan," but rather worked organically toward the general idea of creating a "dungeon simulation." Church believed that the game's Ultima series heritage was extremely helpful, as it gave the team an anchor for their experiments. According to Church, because the team was young and inexperienced, they were "improvising almost the whole time." He said that they would "just write something" that seemed interesting, but would then "get it half done, and we'd say, 'Eh? That's not working.'" He believed that this iterative method was useful overall, but that it entailed an abnormally large workload: it resulted in the creation of "four movement systems before we were done, several combat systems, and so forth." Certain failed experiments meant that the team created "[AI] code for many ideas which turned out to be largely irrelevant to the actual gameplay."
During the first year of the game's development, Church believed that Origin had little faith in the team's ability to complete the game. He later said, "They didn't pay any attention at all, frankly." While Origin CEO Richard Garriott helped the team in fitting the game into the Ultima franchise, Warren Spector later said that the company seemed "blasé" about Ultima Underworld "for the first several months after ORIGIN and Blue Sky signed the deal," despite his own belief that it was a "change-the-world project." Neurath opined that this was due to the team's status as outsiders, whose company was "some 1,500 miles distant" from their publisher. The team was advanced $30,000 to create the game, but its final cost was $400,000. The game was funded partly by Ned Lerner, and by Neurath's royalties from Space Rogue. Throughout the game's production, the studio was run on a tight budget.
Roughly a year into development, the team discovered that their second producer—the first having quit Origin near the beginning of development—had left the project. Neurath later said that "neither [producer] had much involvement" in the game, and that, following the second's departure, the team spent time without any producer at all. Rumors circulated that Origin planned to cancel the project. Following a proposal by the team around this time, Spector, who had previously worked with Neurath on Space Rogue, assumed the role of producer. Church later described this event as "a big win for everyone." Spector began to interact regularly with the team by phone and to visit the studio in person. Neurath later said, "Warren understood immediately what we were trying to accomplish with the game,"
Reception
Ultima Underworld did not sell well at first, so Origin reduced its marketing efforts. However, the game became more popular over time through people talking about it. Eventually, it sold nearly 500,000 copies. It was praised for its 3D graphics and a feature called automapping. In 1993, the game won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1992. It was also nominated for an award at the Game Developers Conference.
ACE magazine called Ultima Underworld "the next true evolutionary step in the RPG genre" and said its dungeon was "frighteningly realistic." The magazine noted that the game's character models "detract from the dense atmosphere a bit," but concluded that "If you've got a PC, then you've got to have Ultima Underworld." Dragon Magazine said the game was "the best dungeon game we've ever played" and claimed it "will leave you wondering how other games can compare."
Computer Gaming World's Allen Greenberg described the game as "an ambitious project" but "not without its share of problems." He praised the story and puzzles but criticized the controls and perspectives, saying "far more impressive sounds and pictures have been produced for other dungeon games." He called the game "an enjoyable challenge with a unique game-playing engine." Scorpia said the game had "superb graphics" and was "a definite must for game players." She later gave it "Role-Playing Game of the Year." Computer Shopper liked the story and characters, saying the game "makes you feel as if you've entered a virtual reality." The Chicago Tribune called it "an amazing triumph of the imagination" and "the creme de la creme of dungeon epics."
Jim Trunzo reviewed Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss in White Wolf #32 (July/Aug., 1992), giving it a 5 out of 5 and saying "Ultima Underworld is simply the kind of product that you need to experience to fully understand where Origin has taken fantasy gaming."
Non-English publications also praised the game. Datormagazin in Sweden called it "in a class by itself." Power Play in Germany praised its "technical perfection" and "excellent" story. Play Time in Germany praised its graphics and sound, and awarded it Game of the Month. Finland's Pelit said "Ultima Underworld is something totally new in the CRPG field. The Virtual Fantasy of the Abyss left reviewers speechless."
Ultima Underworld was added to many hall of fame lists, including those by GameSpy, IGN, and Computer Gaming World. PC Gamer US ranked the game and its sequel 20th on their 50 Best Games Ever list from 1997, citing "strong character interaction, thoughtful puzzles, unprecedented control, and genuine roleplaying." In 2004, readers of Retro Gamer voted Ultima Underworld as the 62nd top retro game, with the staff calling it "easily one of the best entries in the long-running Ultima series."
In 1998, PC Gamer declared it the 18th-best computer game ever released, calling it "Light-years ahead of their time, and still regarded as some of the best roleplaying games ever created." A poll in May 2023 by GQ among video game journalists listed it as the 95th-best video game of all time.
Legacy
Ultima Underworld is considered the first role-playing game (RPG) to include first-person action in a 3D environment. It is also seen as the first true first-person 3D game in any genre. Other 3D games later appeared, and one called Legends of Valour claimed, "Ultima Underworld, move over!" According to Gamasutra, many 3D RPGs, such as Morrowind and World of Warcraft, share Ultima Underworld as a common ancestor, both in their graphics and design. The game helped shift text-based RPGs from imaginary settings to 3D worlds. Its soundtrack, created by George "The Fat Man" Sanger and Dave Govett, was the first in a major first-person game to use a dynamic music system, where the player’s actions change the music.
Ultima Underworld is viewed as the first example of an "immersive sim," a game type that blends features from other genres to give players more control and create unexpected gameplay. It has influenced many games, including BioShock (2007), where its designer, Ken Levine, said it inspired his work. Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski also called it an early influence, stating it had a bigger impact on him than Doom. Other games influenced by Ultima Underworld include The Elder Scrolls: Arena, Deus Ex, Deus Ex: Invisible War, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, Half-Life, and Half-Life 2. Toby Gard, who designed Tomb Raider, said he was a fan of Ultima Underworld and wanted to mix its style with 3D characters like those in Virtua Fighter. Ultima Underworld also inspired System Shock, created by Looking Glass Technologies.
Id Software’s use of texture mapping in Catacomb 3-D, a game that led to Wolfenstein 3D, was influenced by Ultima Underworld. However, accounts of this influence vary. In the book Masters of Doom, author David Kushner wrote that the idea was briefly discussed in a 1991 phone call between Paul Neurath and John Romero. However, Doug Church said John Carmack saw a 1990 demo of Ultima Underworld and mentioned he could create a faster texture mapper. Paul Neurath confirmed this, with Carmack and Romero both present.
Despite its advanced technology, Origin, the company that made Ultima Underworld, chose to use traditional 2D graphics for future mainline Ultima games. The game’s engine was reused and improved for its 1993 sequel, Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds. Looking Glass Studios planned a third game, but Origin rejected their ideas. After Electronic Arts (EA) turned down Arkane Studios’ proposal for Ultima Underworld III, the studio created a spiritual successor called Arx Fatalis.
On March 14, 1997, a 3D remake of Ultima Underworld was released in Japan for the PlayStation by Infinity Entertainment. All creatures and characters were redesigned with 3D models, but items and environments used original textures. The game’s interface and inventory were updated for full-screen display. Characters were redrawn in an anime style to appeal to Japanese players. Sound effects were added, and the music was remixed to resemble the original. New videos for the introduction and ending were also included.
In the early 2000s, Paul Neurath tried to get EA to release Ultima Underworld on the Pocket PC. EA refused, but let him find a developer. ZIO Interactive supported the idea, and EA licensed the rights to them. Doug Church and Floodgate Entertainment helped with the development, and the Pocket PC version was released in 2002.
In 2011, GOG.com released an emulated version of Ultima Underworld for Windows. In 2012, it was also released for Mac OS X.
In 2015, Otherside Entertainment, a new company started by Paul Neurath and others from Looking Glass and Irrational Games, announced a new game called Underworld Ascendant. This game is part of the Ultima Underworld series and set in the Stygian Abyss. However, the licensing agreement does not include the Ultima name or larger intellectual property, leaving Underworld separate from the Ultima series.