• News

Ultima Forever ending a year after it was first released

Ultima Forever was supposed to continue the Ultima IV story on iOS, but EA certainly didn't wait forever to pull the plug on it.

Ozzie Mejia

August 4, 2014 2:30 PM

11

It feels like just yesterday that Ultima Forever: The Quest for the Avatar brought the Avatar's adventures to iOS. That's not entirely an exaggeration either, since Mythic Entertainment released the game less than a year ago. That's what makes EA's decision to pull the plug on the free-to-play adventure game that much sadder.

"While the past year has certainly been quite the adventure – in Britannia and beyond! – that adventure is now drawing to a close, as the time has come for us to say goodbye," reads the Ultima Forever forums (via CVG). "As of Aug 29th 2014 (11:00 AM EDT), Ultima Forever will be shutting down its online services, and will no longer be available to play. This was a very difficult decision for us to make. We've seen the game through ups and downs, and hope that you’ve enjoyed playing it every bit as much as we had making it! Through it all, it's been players like you who've made it all worthwhile."

Ultima Forever picked up the Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar story where it left off, centering around an all-new Avatar. Though creator Richard Garriott was working on a separate take on his Ultima universe, he did offer creative input into Forever's story.

Those looking to take one final look at Ultima Forever can grab the game on the App Store. An Android version was in development, but it was never released.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?