Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny is the fifth game in the Ultima role-playing video game series. It was released in March 1988 and is the second game in the "Age of Enlightenment" trilogy. The story becomes darker than the previous game, Ultima IV. Britannia's king, Lord British, is missing, and a tyrant named Lord Blackthorn now rules the land. Players must explore a world controlled by strict rules and harsh enforcement of beliefs.
Ultima V includes many improvements over Ultima IV. The game world is larger, with more towns, more detailed dungeons, and a large Underworld to explore. Players can choose from more options when talking to non-player characters. The game also adds more ways to interact with the environment, such as searching, moving objects, and exploring surroundings.
After Ultima V was released, the next game in the series, Ultima VI: The False Prophet, came out in 1990.
Plot
After mastering the eight Virtues, becoming an Avatar, and finding the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom in the previous game, the Avatar is called back to Britannia by his old friends Iolo and Shamino using a magic coin that came in the game box. When he arrives, Shamino greets him, but they are quickly attacked by three powerful beings called the Shadowlords. The Avatar uses the amulet to drive them away (a task that cannot be repeated later in the game). He then takes the seriously injured Shamino to Iolo's nearby hut, where Iolo explains that Lord British has disappeared during an expedition into the Underworld, and a ruler named Lord Blackthorn now controls Britannia. Blackthorn enforces a strict version of the Virtues, leading to harsh rules, such as "You must not lie, or you will lose your tongue," "You must give half your income to charity, or you will have no income," or "You must enforce the laws of virtue, or you will die as a heretic." Meanwhile, the Shadowlords frighten the eight cities of Britannia.
Throughout the game, the Avatar learns that the Shadowlords originated from three pieces of Mondain's Gem of Immortality, which was destroyed at the end of the first game. These pieces represent Falsehood, Hatred, and Cowardice—the opposites of Truth, Love, and Courage, which are the Avatar's guiding principles. They have influenced Blackthorn and taken control of his rule.
With the help of his old friends and new allies, the Avatar starts a group called the Warriors of Destiny to defeat the Shadowlords, challenge Blackthorn's rule, and rescue Lord British to return him to his throne.
Gameplay
Warriors of Destiny was the first Ultima game to introduce a time-of-day system. In this system, the sun rises and sets, and non-player characters (NPCs) follow daily routines.
As in Ultima IV, players can talk to NPCs by typing a word or phrase that relates to the topic they want to discuss. When a topic is mentioned, NPCs will share information about it. Players can repeat key words from the NPC’s response to ask for more details. Sometimes, an NPC will ask the player a question, and the player must answer correctly to keep the conversation going. Like in Ultima IV, the game only reads the first four letters of the player’s typed words. For example, typing "shri" is enough to refer to "shrine."
In Ultima V, the Shadowlords play a key role in creating a harsh atmosphere in Britannia. They appear in different towns at various times and influence the townspeople. If the Shadowlord of Cowardice is present, people will run away from the player. If the Shadowlord of Falsehood is active, people will try to steal from the player. If the Shadowlord of Hatred is affecting them, people will try to attack the player. Later in the game, players can track the Shadowlords by observing planetary orbits using a telescope called a spyglass.
Each Shadowlord opposes one of the three guiding principles. Faulinei, the Shadowlord of Falsehood, opposes Truth. Astaroth, the Shadowlord of Hatred, opposes Love. Nosfentor, the Shadowlord of Cowardice, opposes Courage. To defeat the Shadowlords, players must first learn their names by talking to NPCs. Next, players must find the three shards of the Gem of Immortality in the Underworld. Finally, players must visit three sacred flames: the Flame of Truth at the Lycaeum, the Flame of Love at Empath Abbey, and the Flame of Courage at Serpent’s Hold. At each location, players must shout the Shadowlord’s name to summon it, lure it into the flame, and destroy the shard by throwing it into the flame.
Players can travel on foot, ride horses, sail ships, or row skiffs. They can also use eight moongates, which are magical doorways that appear each night in eight locations across Britannia. Stepping through one moongate takes the player to another, depending on the phases of the two moons. By default, moongates are near major towns, but players can move them by digging to find moonstones. Relocating moongates helps when exploring the Underworld. Other transportation options include the grapple, which can be used to climb small mountains, and the magic carpet, which allows players to move quickly over most terrain, such as swamps, rivers, and coastal waters. However, flying over deep sea water or lava can harm the player’s party. Both the grapple and the magic carpet are found by solving puzzles and completing side quests.
Ultima V used a modified version of the Elder Futhark runic alphabet for some game text. This version added letters to match each English letter and included extra runes for common two-letter combinations. Earlier Ultima games used runes on maps and manuals, and Ultima IV showed single runes on the screen. Ultima V was the first game in the series to display multi-letter runic text on the screen.
Development
Warriors of Destiny was the final Ultima game created for the Apple II. The Apple II's limitations (except for the 16-bit Apple IIGS) made it harder to develop new games, so later Ultima titles were made for PC systems. This was also the last Ultima game where Richard Garriott, the game's creator, did most of the coding. In later games, he focused only on game design. Garriott wanted Lord Blackthorn, the main villain, to be more dangerous and not just wait for players to find him.
The game's use of telescopes was inspired by Garriott's hobby as an amateur astronomer. He programmed the game to show accurate planetary orbits.
Ultima V was also released for the NES by Origin and published by FCI in 1993 as Ultima: Warriors of Destiny. The NES version had many differences from the original game. Parts of the introduction were cut, the graphics and gameplay were simpler, and there were fewer music tracks. Character designs were less detailed, and movement felt slow and awkward. The graphics and game engine were not as good as the earlier NES ports of Ultima IV and Ultima III.
The Commodore 64 version of Ultima V used five 1541 disks (about 1.5MB total). Players criticized the game for needing to switch disks often. Like Ultima IV, the game could use two disk drives if available. On a two-drive system, the "Outdoor" disk (used for saving and loading games) stayed in Drive 0, while other disks ("Underworld," "Towne," and "Dungeon") were placed in Drive 1 and swapped. The game also supported Commodore 128 mode. On a C128, extra RAM played background music that was missing on the C64. A fan-made version added music for the C64. The game had a built-in fast loader, but it only worked on NTSC machines. PAL C64s, which ran slower, had very long load times. Using a C128 and a 1571 drive allowed the game to use the computer's "burst mode" without needing a fast loader.
The Amiga and Atari ST versions of Ultima V were released in 1989. Their graphics were copied directly from the PC version, so they did not use the full power of the Amiga or Atari ST. On the Amiga, the soundtrack was replaced with a single new song that repeated throughout the game. On the Atari ST, the music played in different areas than in the Apple II and Commodore 128 versions, but all songs from those versions were reused.
All versions of the game included: the game media; a cloth map; a metal coin with the Codex symbol (as described in the game's introduction); The Book of Lore; Lord British's Odyssey; a quick reference card; a player reference card (specific to the version); and a registration postcard.
The game box differed only in the screenshots on the back. The Atari ST version showed (left to right): a giant mouse in a dungeon; the Castle British area with the player, a ship, and a headless figure; and a battle scene with the player casting "In Flam Hur" on skeletons. The first IBM version showed (left to right): a fountain in a dungeon; the Castle British area with the player, a ship, and a horse; and the interior of an inn. The second IBM version had the same screenshots as the Atari ST version.
Reception
By 1990, the game had sold more than 100,000 copies in the United States. Computer Gaming World said the game's system and technology were much better than Ultima IV. The magazine's Scorpia called Ultima V "well worth the wait," noting better graphics and a stronger story. Some people pointed out problems with the instructions and the fighting system. In 1993, she described the game as "a worthy follow-up… not to be missed," but she said the Underworld was "a disappointment, being vast but essentially empty." Compute! called Ultima V "an excellent example of computer role-playing… but it doesn't match the elegance of IV." The game was reviewed in 1988 in Dragon #137 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 5 out of 5 stars.
Garriott said in 1994 that Ultima V was the best game in the series for storytelling. In 1990, the game received the eighth-highest number of votes in a Computer Gaming World reader survey for "All-Time Favorites." The game was ranked the 18th best game of all time by Amiga Power in 1991.
Legacy
A version of Ultima V created by fans and using the Dungeon Siege game engine, titled Ultima V: Lazarus, was made available on December 22, 2005.