Ultima Online 2 Pitch Video/Demo Reel (2004)

Courtesy of Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum, and thanks to the efforts of everyone who took part in the archival project at Mythic Entertainment, the Ultima Codex is pleased to present this demo reel*, which was part of a pitch to Electronic Arts, by Origin Systems, to begin developing Ultima Online 2 again.

This footage dates back to 2004 (you can see the proposed release date, “FY06”, in the title card of the video), and according to Ben “BanditLOAF” Lesnick from the Wing Commander CIC, it is actually something of a kit-bash of content excerpted from, among other things, the canceled Harry Potter Online and various other Ultima projects which never saw the light of day**.

What I find most striking about this video is that, whereas the previous attempt at Ultima Online 2 had a strikingly different engine and graphical feel, this second attempt — or proposed attempt — looked much more like an evolution of the Ultima Online engine into 3D space. The way the terrain is textured, the shape of the characters, the assets in use…they all look like 3D versions of what you could find whilst wandering around the countryside in Ultima Online.

An interesting historical note: this is pretty much the assassin’s bullet, the final nail in the coffin. In a way this video can be considered to represent the moment that Origin Systems died. As BanditLOAF informed me, this video was produced as part of the very last pitch that Origin delivered to EA, proposing to resurrect Ultima Online 2 and begin new development on it. Electronic Arts turned the pitch down, and Origin was closed instead. So, at least in one sense, this video is Origin’s dying breath.

Anyhow, enjoy. Watch the video. Look for little details. Check out the straightforward, somewhat more traditional, logo. Take in the soundtrack. This is Ultima history at its finest, and the Ultima Codex is indebted to Joe Garrity, BanditLOAF and the team at the Wing Commander CIC, and especially Electronic Arts/Mythic Entertainment for allowing the archival project that rescued this footage to happen!

* The original footage was taken off of an ISO Image of a DVD, one of hundreds of DVDs imaged during the archival project at Mythic Entertainment many years ago. It has been upscaled to high definition using PikaVue.

** Incidentally, this is apparently a fairly common thing. I’ve been told by a contact at EA that a lot of projects get launched more as research efforts than actual attempts to produce a title for release. This has included more than a few experiments involving Origin IPs, including Ultima and Wing Commander.