Ultima 5: Warriors of Destiny

After the events of Ultima 4, when the Hero from another world walked the Avatar Path and reached the Code of Wisdom, several years passed. The codex was raised from the depths of the Stygian abyss and placed in the sanctuary on the island, named after the newly-made Avatar. But it seems that this event entails continuous trouble - deep under the ground a passage opens into a whole network of caves and tunnels inhabited by terrible demons. An expedition, equipped and led by the ruler of the country, is sent to explore this underworld. The expedition fails, Lord British disappears, and three Tenelords rise to the surface from the hellish depths - ghosts born from the fragments of the Diamond Immortal Mondane. With cunning and persuasion they seduce the mind of the royal governor Lord Blackthorn, who elevates Virtues into an absolute and transforms them from an ethical code into a ruthless law. The faithful friends and companions of Avatar, who are now outlawed, again call him to Britain. Together they will have to defeat the Tenelords and Blackthorn and return the true ruler to the throne of the country.

The fifth Ultima is released in 1987 on the Apple II platform, then in 1988 on the IBM PC. For the first time in a series, the game becomes a direct continuation of the storyline of the previous part, while developing and complementing the ideas embodied in it. Ultima 5 smoothes the “black-and-white” ultrapositive approach of the previous game to the Avatar’s personality and heroic plot and introduces, according to Richard Garriott, “gray halftones”. Thanks to an improved dialogue system, characters now have their own opinions on many issues, can be loyal to both the protagonist and the oppressive Blackthorn regime, and can change their views during the game. The detailing of the game world has increased - furniture has appeared in the rooms, which can be moved and used, mining from defeated monsters is no longer abstract "gold", but quite tangible valuable items.

The most important gameplay innovation is the appearance of the calendar and, as a result, the change of day and night. With the advent of twilight, visibility deteriorates and there is an urgent need to search for sources of light — and now there are torches on the walls of buildings, and shining Lunar Gates, and lighthouses. Another revolutionary consequence of this innovation was the appearance of the daily routine for which he lives in every citizen of Britain — people get up in the morning, go to work, to the tavern, have lunch, have dinner, go to bed; Some characters can only be found on certain days or times of day.

The system of magic has changed somewhat - still, the spells need to mix reagents, but now in addition you need to type the correct combination of magic words described in the manual. There was also a need to study the runic alphabet specially created for the series and first appeared in Ultima 5. By the way, the runic font has now framed most of the texts in the game - an unthinkable thing for a modern igrostroya.

Ultima 5 was the last game in the series that used tile graphics and was not developed for the IBM PC. Despite the tedious battle and lack of depth of gameplay compared to later games, Ultima 5 has taken a firm place in the pantheon of the best games in the series due to the high-quality storyline and the wonderfully realized atmosphere of the “live” world.

In 2006 a remake of the Dungeon Siege-Ultima 5: Lazarus game, which was being developed for several years, was released; it received positive reviews from leading publications, the support of Richard Garriott and became one of the first completed Ultima remakes.