Time in Ultima

[Note: if you are looking for Ultima's timeline, go to Timeline of the Ultima Universe.]

Over the course of the series, Ultima has dealt with time, and how time passes and works, in various ways.

Ultima I
Ultima I made no attempt to assign time to the turns taken during gameplay. However, the matter of time is given some prominence in the form of the Time Machine, which takes the Stranger back in time 1000 years to bring about Mondain's defeat.

Ultima ][
Ultima II once again did not track time passing during the game. However, once again Time is given a place in center stage with the Time Doors that take the Stranger between the 5 eras. Once again, the Stranger must travel to the distant past to defeat the game's villain.

Ultima III
Ultima III was the first in the series to keep track of how much time you took to reach the end. The victory screen would tell you how many moves you took before defeating Exodus. It did, however, move away from time as a gameplay element, with the possible exception of the mere existence of a character named The Time Lord.

Ultima IV
The Quest of the Avatar, like Ultima III, tracked how long you played the game, showing you on the victory screen how many turns you took. Each action took the same amount of "time"- attempts to move that were given the response "Slow Progress" simply had you fail to move.

Ultima V
Ultima V was the first Ultima to give the world a time system. The main game screen informs you of the current date in-game, and you start with a pocket watch among your possessions. It is also the first game to make different actions take different amounts of time. When in a town, dungeon, or other 'zoomed in' map, each action takes 1 minute. (This includes the action of checking the time.) In the overworld map and the underworld map, most actions take 2 minutes. The exceptions are movement that receives the message "Slow Progress" (brush), which unlike the previous game take 4 minutes rather than 2, and movement that receives the message "Very slow!" (forest and hills), which takes 6 minutes.

Interestingly, the flying carpet is not actually any faster than walking- each move along the grass still takes 2 minutes, but other entities on the map skip half of their turns, to create the illusion of greater speed.

On the victory screen of Ultima V you are told the day, month, and year of your victory, and also how many months and days it took you.

Ultima VI
Ultima VI was the first game to have some actions which were essentially 'free', taking no time- including the Look action. Otherwise, each action takes half a minute. (It is possible that there are exceptions, but the lack of a pocket watch makes them difficult to test for.)

The victory screen once again tells you how many months and days were spent before winning.

Ultima VII
Ultima VII brought back our trusty friend the pocket watch, but this was the first main line Ultima (second overall, after Ultima Underworld) to be in continuous time, where time just passes while you stand there or move around. As such the time it takes to do anything is simply the time it takes to do it.

The game also has a faux-time sensitive countdown- you must destroy the Black Gate before the celestial alignment allowed the Guardian through. However, planets move in their courses not based on the progression of actual time but rather as the player reaches certain game flags. The final confrontation at the Black Gate is always at the moment of conjunction.