35 Years Later, Lord British Is Taking Ultima Back

"Every decade or so, I tried to work with EA on a revival of Ultima. They always seemed interested enough to start talking, then abandoned talks just as quickly." That's Richard Garriott, the man who created one of the most influential RPG series in PC gaming history, describing thirty-plus years of trying to get his own creation back. Now, he says, he's done asking.

According to a report from Inside Games' Brian Gaar, Garriott is planning to reclaim the copyright to the Ultima series from Electronic Arts as early as 2027. The mechanism is a provision in US copyright law that allows creators, or their heirs, to reclaim a copyrighted work 35 years after it was assigned. Garriott sold developer Origin Systems to EA in 1992. Do the maths, and 2027 is the year the clock runs out.

"And so, I have been waiting… finally, the time has come!" Garriott told Inside Games.

What Copyright Gets Him

The story got rolling earlier this week when EA filed two new trademarks for the Ultima series, one for an online computer game and another for a downloadable video game. That filing prompted Gaar to reach out to Garriott, and the resulting conversation is where the copyright reclamation plan came to light.

Here's the critical distinction, and it's one Garriott himself seems to understand: copyright and trademark are not the same thing. Copyright covers source code and audiovisual elements. Trademark covers the brand name, specific characters, logos. EA filing new trademarks means the publisher still controls the name "Ultima" itself. Garriott can't just ship a game called Ultima IX Reborn or whatever. What he can do, apparently, is work under a slightly different banner. "'Lord British's Ultima' will regain all the copyrights of my original work," Garriott said. "What it will become is the next challenge."

I find it fascinating that EA chose this exact moment to file fresh trademarks. Whether that's routine housekeeping or a deliberate move to shore up their position ahead of Garriott's copyright play, the timing is hard to ignore. EA letting the Ultima name sit dormant for the better part of two decades and then suddenly re-upping trademarks right as the 35-year window opens? That's a publisher protecting an asset it refused to use.

And that's what makes this story compelling beyond the legal mechanics. Ultima isn't some forgotten curiosity. The mainline CRPGs were genre-defining. Ultima Underworld helped birth the immersive sim. Ultima Online was one of the foundational MMOs. Larian Studios has cited Ultima 7 as a major inspiration for both Divinity: Original Sin and Baldur's Gate 3. This is a series whose DNA runs through some of the best RPGs ever made, and EA has done almost nothing with it since the early 2000s. Lord of Ultima in 2010 and Ultima Forever in 2013 were both ill-fated experiments that went nowhere.

So I'm glad Garriott is making this move. But I'd be lying if I said there weren't reasons for skepticism. MassivelyOP's coverage raised a fair point: Garriott's track record since leaving EA hasn't been spotless. Shroud of the Avatar, his Kickstarted spiritual successor to Ultima, was criticized for mismanagement and cut features before Garriott effectively exited the project in 2019. After that, he attached his name to an NFT game that appears to have gone nowhere. Those aren't confidence-building credits for someone asking fans to believe in a comeback.

Still, there's a difference between a creator fumbling with new ventures and a creator getting their hands back on the thing they built in the first place. Garriott made Ultima. He understands what it is at a foundational level. And the CRPG market has never been healthier. Baldur's Gate 3 proved there's a massive audience for deep, systems-driven RPGs. If Garriott can assemble the right team and scope the project realistically, a return to Ultima's world, even under a slightly different name, could land at exactly the right moment.

Garriott says he'll have more to share at DragonCon in September, where he's listed as a guest. Meanwhile, EA still operates Ultima Online through developer Broadsword, and the game continues to receive updates, so the publisher clearly hasn't abandoned the IP entirely. Whether EA contests Garriott's copyright claim or lets it proceed quietly will say a lot about how seriously the publisher takes the franchise it spent decades ignoring.