Ultima Underworld III

Ultima Underworld III is a cancelled Origin project that was to have delivered a third installment of the Ultima Underworld series. Although publicly discussed by Origin on several occasions throughout the early to mid-1990s, active development did not commence until 1997, with Ultima Online on the verge of release and work on the languishing Ultima IX: Ascension shortly to be resumed with a fully three-dimensional engine.

Development
Ultima Underworld III was planned as early as 1993, at which time it was to begin production upon completion of Ultima VIII: Pagan for a 1995 release. This did not eventuate, however, as the team instead split itself between Ultima IX: Ascension and Crusader: No Remorse.

Several years would pass before a comprehensive proposal for Ultima Underworld III was floated in 1997. Using the Wing Commander: Prophecy engine, Ultima Underworld III was to reprise the first-person perspective of Ultima Underworld and Ultima Underworld II, rendered in hardware-accelerated 3D, along with other Ultima hallmarks such as character conversations, world interaction, combat, and spellcasting. In addition to a single-player mode, it was to feature both cooperative and competitive online multiplayer support for a total of eight players. On this occasion, a late-1998 release was projected.

It is not clear how far development progressed beyond its initial specification, if to any significant extent, before the project was shelved. While concept sketches, an expansive design document, and world editor tools were completed, Ultima Underworld III was never officially promoted by Origin as an upcoming title.

Plot
Unlike its predecessors, Ultima Underworld III was to have taken place not in Britannia but the grim, weathered world of Jaal, a new location given as the prison to which Astaroth, the Shadowlord of Hatred, was banished in Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny. Astaroth, driven to reunite with his two wraithlike siblings, was to serve as one of the game's antagonists, albeit largely as a background presence. Furthermore, the player was to take the role of another protagonist transported from Earth, rather than the Avatar of Virtue.

Although largely self-contained, the events of the game would have provided a tangential prologue for the main Ultima series' Age of Armageddon trilogy, in particular the as yet unreleased, which, at the time, was set to establish the Guardian as an amalgamation of the three Shadowlords.