An examination of games which have over- or under-delivered on promises made early in development.

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Intro

Ultima VI Gates of Creation by OC ReMix

New Patrons & Shout-Outs

Firstly, I'd like to send some thanks in the direction of Dominus, from the Exult team, who recently backed the Ultima Codex on Patreon! To those of you who've been in the Ultima fan project scene for a while, Dom needs no introduction; those of you who don't know him might be interested to know that he's the caretaker of the Exult project (the cross-

How does the Ultima series handle masculinity and femininity? How are certain characters — or even the Virtues — portrayed as masculine/feminine?

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Intro

Ultima VI Gates of Creation by OC ReMix

Podcast Topic(s)

[Ken] So this is kind of a big deal, as episodes go, because this is the first episode for which the topic has been determined via an outside suggestion. You'll recall, back in Episode 14, before we got to talking about New Project Britannia, we gave a shout-out to Juliet (a friend of Linguistic

How much prominence does combat need to have in an RPG? How necessary should combat be to progressing through — or passing — the game? And is there something “lesser” about including an “easy” difficulty setting?

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Intro

Ultima VI Gates of Creation by OC ReMix

Eleven years ago, the Ultima Codex's predecessor — Ultima Aiera — was launched. Some pretty wild stuff has happened since then.

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Intro

The Parting Glass, as recorded by Shaun Davey for the Waking Ned Devine soundtrack.

Podcast Topic(s)

This episode is mostly off-the-cuff. Truth be told, I find it difficult to approach the issue of the Codex's (and Ultima Aiera's) anniversary, unless I spend weeks in advance preparing and revising (and re-revising) the text. I haven't had time for that this year, so this podcast episode serves as a stand-in for that. It's a particularly good episode, though, and I'd encourage you to listen to

The response to the announcement of New Project Britannia has been overwhelming, so let's talk a bit about what the project needs and where we want to see it go.Intro

Ultima VI Gates of Creation by OC ReMix

New Patrons & Shout-Outs

I want to give a shout-out to Josh Nielsen, a.k.a. Joshontheweb (you can find him on Twitter: @joshontheweb). He's a long-time Ultima fan, and a long-time fan of the Codex as well; we've been mutual follows on Twitter for a few years now. And it turns out that he's actually working on Zencastr. Josh and I had a really engaging discussion on Twitter about Zencastr and some of the features that would turn it into a powerful podcasting platform, and it's cool that in addition to being passionate about all things audio (

Project Britannia II: a new framework to be built by and for the Ultima & SotA fandoms, which intends to become the go-to resource for Ultima & SotA fan projects.

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Intro

Ultima VI Gates of Creation by OC ReMix

New Patrons and Shout-Outs

Firstly, I'd like to give a shout-out to Cody, who recently adjusted his Patreon pledge...upward, just to be clear. That was a really cool thing to do; thanks!

Also, a note of thanks to Juliet, who sent in the first topic suggestion we've received to date. That's right: thus far, we've thought up all of the things we've talked about ourselves. But she had a great suggestion — she wonders if we'd con

In which we look at ways to get the Ultima games up and running on mobile devices. This is relatively easy in the case of Ultimas 1 through 8...but what about Ultima 9?

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Intro

Ultima VI Gates of Creation by OC ReMix

New Patrons & Shout-Outs

A big shout-out to Browncoat Jayson and Golem Dragon, both of whom worked to keep the Ultima Codex up to date with the latest Shroud of the Avatar, Underworld Ascendant, and Crowfall-related news during the last few days of June and the first few days of July.

There have been

E3 has come and gone. There were actually some pretty neat things presented thereat, albeit EA has once again refused to announce a new single-player Ultima.

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Intro

Ultima VI Gates of Creation by OC ReMix

Podcast Topic(s)

Sergorn Dragon and I have this thing we do every year, just before the first-day EA showcase at E3: we each pick odds that a new, single-player Ultima game will be announced. Over the years, we've broadened this category a little bit: we're not necessarily asking for a BioWare-level AAA cinematic experience, after all. It would be perfectly fine with us if EA took a page from Ubisoft a

What is a companion, in an RPG context? What is a henchman? Does the distinction even matter, and if so, why?

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Intro

Ultima VI Gates of Creation by OC ReMix

New Patrons & Shout-Outs

This week, the Ultima Codex has new supporters on Patreon! Thank you, Pascal and kodenkm, for helping keep the site running.

Follow-Up From Previous Episode

So how about that timing? I

In which Withstand the Fury Dragon geeks out for a bit about Mass Effect 4 and Ultima 6, and muses upon the future of the Ultima Codex.

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Intro

Crash Landing, from the Mass Effect 2 soundtrack.

Podcast Topic(s)

I was going to talk about some of the recent rumours surrounding the next Mass Effect game — which I'll refer to as Mass Effe