Ultima VI: The False Prophet



Ultima VI: The False Prophet is the sixth game in the series and the last part of the "Age of Enlightenment" trilogy. It was published and released in 1990 by Origin for the IBM-PC. Ports for the Atari ST and C64 followed in 1991. A port for the Amiga was released in 1992. Ports for the FM-Towns in 1992 and SNES in 1993 were next.

The first time an Ultima was developed on a 16-bit computer (namely the IBM-PC) and not the Apple II is clearly noticeable in an extreme rise of complexity and graphics. Gone are the tiled graphics, different scales, and 3D-dungeons from all previous Ultimas; Everything is now shown from a isometric perspective with amazing attention to detail in a seamless world, making Britannia look much more realistic. Every character now has a portrait when the Avatar talks with him/her/it, the inventory is now graphical, the game mouse driven and having full music and the characters and story have become more mature and complex than they were in Ultima V.

The game got very good reviews and sold quite well for Origin, making it a big success. Ultima VI showed its muscles in the early 16-bit era.

Included with the game
The release of Ultima VI included these things with the game:
 * The Book "Compendium"
 * A cloth map of Britannia
 * An Orb of the Moons (same as in the intro)
 * An insert about the Immortality Contest
 * Only in some cases, a rune related to the Immortality Contest

There was a "Special Limited Edition", which not only had a box signed by Richard Garriott and Denis Loubet but also an audio tape.

Differences between the ports
This is the first Ultima developed on the PC and at the same time, the original port is also widely considered the best version of the game. The 16-bit ports for the Atari ST and the Amiga were basically the same, but had far fewer colors, worse music and used a large, inconvenient number of floppy disks which would put off some players. Also see Computer Ports of Ultima VI.

The only 8-bit port is for the C64, and a small wonder. How it was possible to squeeze such a huge game, without changes in the game engine, onto three double-sided disks will be Origin's secret forever. However, the price was high, with a very complicated way to control the game, much reduced graphical quality, almost no music (apart from the beginning and endgame) and several cuts (fewer spells and items). More about the conversion here: C64-Port of Ultima VI.

The port for the SNES looks graphically much like the PC-port, but has a much more complicated control scheme, no character portraits and has a simplified talk system combined with some censorship due to Nintendo's policies. On the other hand, it's display is fullscreen. For more information, see SNES-Port of Ultima VI.

There also exists a port for the FM-Towns (a Japanese computer) with full speech in both Japanese and English. Interestingly enough, many of the characters are voiced by their real-life counterparts in the English speech. Lord British is, for example, voiced by Richard Garriott. Not all of Origin's staff was available at the time of the recording, however, so a few substitutes were needed. Otherwise, the FM-Towns version is, for the most part, the same as the original PC version. It's very hard to find, but because of its full speech, it has become sought after by many Ultima fans.

The Story
After the rescue of Lord British and the mostly-complete collapse of the Underworld, Britannia seems to have found peace again, but it doesn't last for long. From what remains of the Underworld, strange creatures called Gargoyles arise, starting a war against the humans of Britannia. The war now lasts for some years and the Gargoyles have captured the shrines, stealing the Moonstones.

In this situation, the Avatar is lured to Britannia by a red Moongate and nearly sacrificed by the Gargoyles. Freed in the last minute, the hero starts to fight back and frees the shrines and Moonstones from the Gargoyles, effectively chasing them off Britannia. But a strange book from the sacrifice scene and a mysterious Translation Silver Tablet reveal a horrible secret. The Gargoyles aren't really evil, they are desperate. They think the Avatar is the False Prophet, coming to kill them all while their home vanished and collapsed more with each day. Coming to the Gargoyle Lands to set straight what has went wrong, the Avatar realizes that the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom is both the biggest point of bitterness between the two races and the only voice of reason they would listen to. So the Avatar sends to Codex back into the Void, where no one can claim it, and with two special Lenses both Kings can see it, to read its wisdom and learn the truth. And so, peace is restored to the troubled land.

Music
Ultima VI represented a quantum leap in Ultima music. Previously, music was limited to hardware such as the Mockingboard and Commodore's SID chip. Now it was possible to even play music on technologies better than FM synthesis.

This was also the last Ultima to give credit to Kenneth W. Arnold, who had previously composed all Ultima music.

Trivia

 * First Ultima not using the classical tile graphics or different scales. Also the first developed on the PC (no Apple II) and not having 3D-dungeons.
 * First PC Ultima to have full music and mouse support.
 * Character portraits are introduced into the series.
 * First appearance of the Armageddon spell.
 * The Commodore 64 version marks the final appearance of Ultima on an 8-bit platform.
 * When the C64 port of Ultima VI was created, the limits of the system proved quite challenging to Origin, so they had to axe a few things. Along that, Horses vanished to eliminate horseriding. They added the excuse that the Gargoyles had eaten all the horses (with exception of Smith).
 * The programmers obviously did anticipate that players could destroy all life with the Armageddon spell and then still try to win the game, just to break the game. The programmers didn't want this to happen. So trying to return the Codex to the void will no longer work... failure is the least you deserve.

Upgrades
Ultima VI is the first Ultima that doesn't need any kind of upgrades for sound or graphics. However, there are several projects in progress to allow it to run on modern systems, or to remake it with other game engines.

The Ultima 6 Project
This is a project to recreate Ultima VI with the Dungeon Siege game engine. See The Ultima 6 Project for more information.

Nuvie
This is an open-source project designed to use the original data files for Ultima VI and make it playable on a number of different operating systems. See Nuvie: The Ultima 6 Engine for more information.