Ultima VIII Speedrunning

Spoiler Alert - this page assumes full play-through knowledge of the game and contains significant plot and gameplay details.

Categories

Ultima VIII has three categories of speedruns.

• Ultima VIII - Any%
• Ultima VIII - Any% No Cheat Mode
• Ultima VIII - Any% No Major Glitches

As of this writing, there is no known access to the in-game cheat mode without externally editing game data. This makes the Any% category currently defunct.

Basic Info

This guide assumes the reader is familiar with the full main-quests game-play of Ultima 8. A full walkthrough is available here: Ultima VIII Walkthrough.

Versions

Ultima 8 has two major revisions, the originally released un-patched version and the patched version. As of this writing, there are no known advantages to speed-running with the un-patched version. The patched version does introduce exploitable glitches while also making the game significantly easier to play. This guide assumes the patched version of the game.

Techniques

Pause Buffered Actions

The keyboard "pause/break" pauses the game while allowing continued mouse control. You can cast spells or click to perform actions which will be queued for the next frame when un-paused. You can also click dialogs, which is useful for precise warp timing with the recall item. You can perform both the double-click to select a spell/action and the following single click to target it in the same pause frame. This allows precisely timed or fast back to back targeted item use or spell-casting.

Air Warping

The recall item can be used part way through a jump. Advance the dialog for the recall item to the destination selection and perform a jump. It is easiest to pause buffer to select the destination. This is useful for interacting with or looting items where you can jump to within arms reach but cannot safely land.

Blackrock Tip Looting

Double clicking the 'Obelisk Tip' item will attempt to cast a version of the 'Ethereal Travel' spell. It will fail if the 5 blackrock pieces are not assembled correctly on the ground in a pentagon pattern. When it fails, it returns any nearby blackrock pieces to the avatars backpack. This failed spell can be used to loot some of the blackrock pieces from their inconvenient locations. It allows looting the Heart of Earth without the break ground spell, and it also allows looting the Breath of Air without Aerial Servant using the Air Warp technique.

Tanking Trapped Chests

Many chests are trapped with an explosion when opened. Its usually not practical to destroy traps in chests so you have to be able to survive the explosion damage. The chests seem to do reduced (and survivable) damage when opened from either minimum range or maximum range. Damage can be avoided entirely from maximum range, but has the problem where sometimes the chest itself bounces from the explosion, putting it out of reach for looting. Its generally preferable to open a trapped chest from as close as possible and heal up with a potion if health management is required.

Chest Carrying, Juggling and Busting

The avatar can carry a single treasure chest. They are very heavy and bulky so watch your weight and bulk limits before attempting as you may need to inventory budget (current NMG route as of this writing hits weight limit which chest carrying).

The chest can only be picked up by dragging into the open backpack manually. You cannot auto-loot a chest to the avatars sprite. Once you are carrying a chest, you may not loot anything until your drop the chest. This means you may have to chest juggle when picking up items along the way while transporting a chest (i.e. drop the chest, pick up new item and pick up chest again).

A locked chest can be busted open using yellow lava. Place the chest on the lava, and the contents of the chest will remain on the surface of the lava after the chest is destroyed. The chests can be placed in arms reach such that contents can simply be picked up. Aerial servant can be used a a backup strategy if the chest breaks too far away.

Vividos (the apprentice necromancer) is willing to take delivery of the serpentine dagger while still locked in the chest in your inventory (allows Aramina key skip with Aerial Servant).

Invincibility Management

Purple potions are rare and valuable for invincibility in early game until spells (or Fake Death) become available. Some known convenient locations:

• Tenebrae Guard House
• Caves near the entrance from Upper Catacombs
• In the second key chest in Hall of the Mountain King

Invincibility effects cannot be refreshed once they are already active. The original timer will still cancel the effect even if you recast early. You need to let the effect fully fade before recasting. This should be taken into account when routing such that buffers are added between invincibility spells. This is most noticeable in Obsidian fortress with high invincibility use.

Rock Flesh lasts 100 seconds which is long enough to complete both the Armor of Flames and Extinguish trials under the one cast.

Golems

Golems can break more doors than just the Hall of the Mountain King. Notable doors include the Obsidian Fortress door and the Conventicle of the Dead (where the Heart of Earth is).

Lava Blanketing

You can avoid needing the Endure Heat spell to walk across hard (red) lava by placing large flat objects on the lava and jumping/walking on them. The most effective items are shirts, blankets and open bedrolls. The items will bounce randomly if thrown. Where possible place the item (arrow cursor) rather than throw it (cross-hair cursor). If you must throw to make the distance, you may need to save scum to get a preferable bounce.

Fire Shield Escape

When engaging a Sorcerer in combat, they will often cast the Fire Shield spell, which from close range will fence you in with the Sorcerer for a period of time after the Sorcerer is killed. A quick kill on the Sorcerer is preferable, as the Fire Shield will often not complete and you can simple walk out the uncompleted section of the ring. This requires favorable combat RNG. If the ring completes, you can escape it by entering (or staying in) combat mode (c) and walking backwards through the ring. To walk backwards in combat mode, start walking forwards, and with the right mouse button continually held down, reverse the walking direction.

Glitches

The following is limited to glitches with known applicability to speed-running and details how glitches can be used to save run time. Kobra Kai Dragon's Guide to PAGAN - ULTIMA 8 provides a more comprehensive guide to Ultima 8 glitches and is an original source for many of the below glitches.

Dialog and Scenario Escapes

You can regain control of your player during a scenario or dialog by double clicking certain usable items before loss of movement. Sorcery spells and scrolls work. The most useful item to use is the flash spell, as this will escape scenarios fully and center the camera back on the avatar. Double click the flash spell before the dialog or scenario starts which will give you a cross-hair cursor. After loss of control, target it with the cross-hairs to cast the spell as normal. Other items do restore movement, but will not center the camera on the avatar. Completing the scenario or completing another dialog will recenter the camera. Warping does not work. Completing certain spell cast animations (most notably scrolls) after initiating a conversation or scenario will also escape. This can also escape loss of control due to death in some cases.

Fake Death

Banned in No Major Glitches

This uses a scenario escape on the event based death when you attack Mythran. You must have an invincibility spell active at the time of death for it to work.

Its easiest executed with Sorcery spells, however you would usually want access to this glitch well before learning Sorcery. The easiest early game execution is performed by placing a flask of oil at Mythran's feet, using it (double click) then using a purple potion and a spell scroll while the fuse burns. You want Mythran to be hit by the explosion before the spell cast completes. Simply walk away or recall once both the lightning bolt and spell cast are complete. The avatar will get up (after being knocked down by lightning) as soon as you take a step.

This puts the player into a very glitched state with numerous speed-running benefits. Monsters and NPCs will never attack you and you take no damage and have no knock-back from fire mushrooms or hard lava.

The biggest benefit is this flags the avatar as a dead body, which makes the avatar sprite a movable object. Pick yourself up and drop yourself like any other in game dead body. This is extremely useful for getting out of bounds, and is the only known way to get to the black out of bounds areas in most of the caves and dungeons areas.

The only ways you can die are open water (U8s scariest enemy regardless of play style) and yellow lava. The game menu also soft-locks, so do not menu (esc) or open the options screen (o) once this glitch is active. Saving, including the quick-save (F7) does not work. meaning using this glitch requires a single segment execution.

One trap with this glitch, is it will cause Malchir to banish the Daemon quickly after summoning it to attack you, as the combat logic thinks it has killed you. You need to quickly cast Banish Daemon before Malchir does or you soft-lock.

Out of Bounds

Banned in No Major Glitches

The avatar can freely walk on the ground out of bounds. Different sections of out of bounds behave differently. In some places the avatars sprite will leave a trail of after images behind. In other places there will be out-of-bounds ceilings, either with scenery or just black obstructing the view of the avatar. Once out of bounds, the avatar can either come back in, or hit a loading zone from the back.

The major zones of Pagan are not continuous. Each zone is as a diagonal square canvas and moving from one to the next is done via a warp from loading zone. As of this writing there are no known wrong warps or techniques to jump between canvases without using a proper loading zone. As a general rule, if the divination spell text changes, you are on a different canvas and those areas are not connected in OOB.

Some indoors areas or sub-regions are managed as local warps within the one canvas. The game gives the illusion of just walking indoors or downstairs normally but you have in fact warped across the canvas. In these cases you can run to these 'indoor' areas from out-of-bounds. The most notable example is the Birthplace of Moriens, which is located on the upper-catacombs (first) canvas off to bottom right of the entry from the cemetery. This is nowhere near the proper entrance to BoM (through the Scion Key door with the plaque), but you can access it quickly from the cemetery entrance from out-of-bounds. Another notable example, is all of the lever-cave, plateau and Mythran's House (all pieces) are on the one canvas connected by local warps. There are all accessible from each other OOB although the distances are not practical as of this writing.

For additional information, see World Model of Ultima VIII.

A comprehensive set of maps illustrating each individual canvas and the relative positions of sub-regions is available at Pagan the Beautiful.

There are 3 ways to get out of bounds.

In some instances, a section of wall is just missing from game data, and you simply walk out of bounds. A notable example is in the lever cave just after the jumping stones on the lower left blind wall.

You can also fall out of bounds climbing to the higher ledges that are the edges on some maps. You need to bring your own climbable platforms to get the extra climbing height. Logs and planks of wood work best. Climb the logs, then climb up to the high ledges. Once up, run out of bounds and fall down. You need an invincibility spell to survive the fall. This is most useful in places like the cemetery to skip the break ground spell (for catacombs before necromancy) or in the upper catacombs (for Birthplace of Moriens before Key of Scion).

You can get out-of-bounds almost anywhere on any map using a self-move with the Fake Death glitch. This is the only known way out-of bounds when there are no usable missing walls or high ledges. This is most notable in the caves (upper catacombs second part), Ancient Shrine and the Obsidian Fortress, all of which have the black out of bounds (no high ledges). Dragging yourself out of bounds results varies significantly depending on where you try to do it. Stand close to a wall and move yourself on-top of it in the black area. Some places are much easier than others. The OOB drag to skip the door to Argentrock isle is particularly difficult with often only a single working pixel depending on start location. Getting OOB in the Obsidian Fortress is much easier. You can easily drag yourself to a high ledge to avoid platform building if you have Fake Death.

Early Stratos

Stratos can we killed with the Breath of Air at Argentrock Isle. Simply use the BoA on Stratos. This will charge the BoA and transport you to the end game. If you do not have the other blackrock pieces at the time you do this, you are soft-locked.

Hydros Overkill

Hydros can be killed multiple times with any of the four elemental Blackrock pieces. Kill Hydros normally first then, immediately pause buffer. While paused, do another kill with another blackrock piece as Hydros collapses into the water. Advance frame and repeat with 3rd or 4th pieces. 4 way kill is particularly difficult as there aren't a lot of spare frames before Hydros goes underwater. Hydros becomes un-targetable before being fully submerged so there is less time than apparent.

Permanent Invisibility

Cast flash while invisible. This will make the invisibility permanent. You can cancel it with either a restore-to-sight scroll or a black potion. Useful for long term enemy evasion.

Skips

Ancient Necromancers

The avatar does not need to visit the Ancient Necromancers at all. Despite the directions of the main quest, this is purely optional and you can cast all necromancy and visit the Mountain King as soon as you have the Key of the Caretaker.

Full Necromancy

With the Fake Death glitch, all of Necromancy and the preceding dagger subplot can be be skipped.

The Upper Catacombs are reached without the Break Ground spell by going OOB in the cemetery and finding the loading zone from the back. All the Scion Key doors (including the door from Stone Cove to the Pit of the Dead) are skipped with similar OOB in their respective regions.

The break ground in the Shrine of the Ancient ones is Skipped using OOB to get through the thinner sections of black solid wall. You must avoid falling down from OOB as there is no way back up once you have fallen down to low elevation (other than zoning out from the front door loading zone. Once up high OOB in the black regions, self move to the other side of a thin section of OOB as close as possible to the far edge. Do not try and walk while out of bounds as you may start to shake and fall. Once near the far side, take a step to fall back in-bounds to get to the area with the tower of Hanoi puzzle.

The Heart of Earth is obtained using Blackrock Tip Looting to avoid needing a break ground spell.

No Necromancy also implies execution of the Carthax Lake skip to avoid that use of the break ground spell.

Mordea Coup

Normally play requires you to overthrow the town ruler Lady Mordea to restore Devon as the rightful tempest, so he can give you the Tear of the Seas. This is skipped by placing the chest containing the Tear in your inventory and busting it with Lava, or placing chest in fire pits like Koricks or in herdsman valley.

Theurgy

Most of Theurgy can be skipped. There is no need to complete any quests or learn any spells. Aerial Servant, Restoration and Air Walk all have significant utility in routes so this skip needs to be weighed up against the loss of these spells. This skip can still be completed after crafting spells to skip the silver mine torax test and Torwin subplot.

To get to Stratos without Air Walk, place an open bedroll (Devon has one at the very start of game) half off the edge of the cliff for the leap of faith. Walk out over the bedroll and the first floating platform will be visible in the top left corner. Flash over there then jump to Stratos on the rocks as normal. The Flash is buggy, there are certain areas of the platform that will drop the avatar in the water so a specific setup is worth experimenting.

To get the Breath of Air without Aerial Servant, Air Warp while doing Early Stratos. You can perform both the Stratos kill and the warp in the same pause frame. You do not need to pick up the BoA at all, you can use it directly while it's on the pedestal while you are mid jump. You must Air Warp locally to Argentrock Isle to allow the death of Stratos scenario to complete in the background. Other warps unload the scenario. Once complete you will be transported to the end game with the charged BoA (as normal for the Early Stratos glitch).

Note that Air Walk is not required to cross the river of fire. There is a section of hard lava that has an invisible safe space to walk out further than you apparently should be able to, where you can make the jump to the island (where Beren appears for his cut-scene) with a regular standing-start jump.

Carthax Lake

You can skip freeing Hydros at Carthax Lake (no need to go there at all) by crossing the un-flooded river of fire. This also skips Beren's cut-scene. With Fake Death, just walk across the hard lava. Otherwise you can use Lava Blanketing to cross. Air Walk makes all of this significantly easier but is difficult to acquire before this game stage.

Sorcery Town

You can skip the sorcery betrayal and crafting tests by breaking into the obsidian fortress without the key. A golem is effective, summon the golem in the dirt and lead it over the bridges to the door with the 'follow' command. Care has to be taken with positioning leading the golem, as it is prone to getting snagged on the rock nearby rocks.

You can also back-door the Obsidian Fortress loading zones from out-of bounds. There are two OOB options. You can OOB on the high ledge at the town entrance (from the river of fire) then skirt round the edge of all the lava in the zone to find the first indoors section of Obsidian Fortress (where Malchir usually appears and animates two Daemons). Finding that loading zone from the back is tricky. It is significantly easier with self move using [Fake Death]. The other way is to come at the back of the tower door loading zone. You will need either death glitch or endure heat spell to survive walking on the hard lava to get there. The loading zone is above floor elevation so you will need to jump up into it.

Note that you still need to apprentice one of the two rivaling acolyte sorcerers in order to cast sorcery spells. As of this writing there is no total sorcery skip to avoid learning to cast. If you skip the crafting tests you will not be able to see how many charges sorcery spells have but will still be able to cast and craft as normal. As of this writing, it's normal to quickly apprentice Bane, then go straight to Obsidian Fortress.

Obsidian Fortress

The obsidian fortress can be largely skipped by going OOB once inside. All of Arcadion's chamber, the obsidian fortress tests and Malchir's inner sanctum are on the same canvas so you can run straight to Malchir without the four blue symbols.

Its generally not practical to skip the tests region entirely, as it is a rich source of pre-made sorcery spells. It also has flame sting as a convenient high powered weapon on-route (right next to the valuable Banish Daemon symbol).

Pyros and Lithos Endgame

Three way overkill Hydros with Tear, Heart and Tongue to skip Plane of Earth and Plane of Fire completely. Usually you enter end game using Early Stratos so there is no need to do four way. Always use the Tear first, as if you fail the overkill you can complete the other planes as a backup strategy. Killing Hydros with something other than the Tear and then missing the Tear is a soft-lock.

See also

• Speedrunning
• Ultima VIII
• Ultima VIII Walkthrough
• World Model of Ultima VIII

External Links

Speedrun.com Ultima Leaderboards

Pagan The Beautiful (maps)

Kobra Kai Dragon's Guide to PAGAN - ULTIMA 8 (glitch guide)