Original Serpent Isle introduction

The original introduction of Ultima VII Part Two was created as a rendered movie; something unusual at the time. What was actually released with the game was an abbreviated version.

Description

It turned out that the eight megabytes needed for this introduction were far too much for a game sold on floppy disks, so Origin had to alter the introduction to save space.

The differences are mainly two:

• Instead of the plain dark blue sky, the sky over Castle Britannia originally was overcast and it was raining. Only the lightning remains in the shipped game.
• The whole last third of the introduction with the Avatar's ship approaching the Serpent Pillars was totally different. It was much more animated; the Serpent Pillars rose from the sea, and many perspectives were different. This was all replaced with mostly static backgrounds.

Denis Loubet made the original animation available in 1998, however without sound or the face of the Guardian (which was created later for lip-synch). The complete introduction with all the elements put together can be seen below.

Trivia

• Due to the changes to decrease the video size an icy region is shown in the final introduction even though a polar region is never seen in Britannia. This was done since the animated water increased the file size significantly.
• With Ultima VII Part Two auf Deutsch the original introduction was re-intergrated into the game.
• Starting with version 1.8 in 2022, Exult also has re-integrated the original intro back into the game (as an option).

Gallery

• 

  The Avatar's ship

• 

  The Serpent Pillars

• 

  The portal opens

Video

The full Serpent Isle introduction

External Links

• Serpent Isle (Director’s Cut) – the raw animation from Denis Loubet