Time in Ultima
This article is about how time progresses in the Ultima universe. For for a timeline of the Ultima universe, see Timeline of the Ultima universe.
Over the course of the series, the flow of time in the Ultima is not consistent with the flow on Earth.
Ultima I[edit]
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 II[edit]
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[edit]
Ultima III was the first in the series to keep track of how much time the player took to reach the end. The victory screen would reveal how many moves were taken 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[edit]
The Quest of the Avatar, like Ultima III, tracked how long the player played the game, revealing on the victory screen how many turns were taken. Each action took the same amount of "time" – attempts to move that were given the response "Slow Progress" were treated as a failure to move.
Ultima V[edit]
Ultima V was the first Ultima to give the world a time system. The player is informed of the current in-game date on the main screen and given a pocket watch. 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 the player is told the day, month, and year of victory, and also how many months and days it took.
Ultima VI[edit]
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.)
The victory screen once again reveals how many months and days were spent before winning.
Ultima Underworld[edit]
Ultima Underworld takes place more or less in real time. If a character tells the player that a certain task will take 10 minutes, it will take 10 real-time minutes. There are a few things the player can do that will pause the game while it prompts the player for some input. Sleeping will advance the game timer and also exhaust any lit light sources and end any duration spells. Other than a few characters having tasks to do that take a certain amount of time, nothing in Ultima Underworld is time based, everything is event based. There is no clock or watch to tell the time but the Avatar will take a guess at the current day number and time of day. The number of in-game days taken to finish the game is presented on the final game winning screen.
Ultima VII[edit]
Ultima VII reintroduced the pocket watch, but this was the first main line Ultima (second overall, after Ultima Underworld) to be in continuous time, where time passes during every instance of gameplay. 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 – the Black Gate must be destroyed before the celestial alignment allows 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.