Ultima Online's 23rd Anniversary celebration is off with a bang, with Broadsword announcing Ultima Online: New Legacy.
Announced during a livestream today, Ultima Online: New Legacy, as well as released a shiny new trailer to celebrate the announcement. The MMO is meant to be a brand new shard, forgoing the current trend of bringing cassic MMOs as they existing at launch to life again in a modern world.
"We asked a simple question: 'What is your Britannian Legacy?,"' UO designer Greg Havlusch explained during a celebration livestream today. "And trhe response was overwhelming. And what it showed us was, just like us, people who have had a chance to experience Ultima Online have an incredible connection to it: the nostalgia, the friendships [...] You just can't find that anymore. And started thinking and talking about how we can recreate that. And that's where this idea of Ultima Online: New Legacy came from, that is our ultimate goal: to recreate that nostalgia you once felt when you played UO, without having to be bogged down and face the barriers of entry that you would otherwise face trying to get into a gameworld that is 23 years old."
Ultima Online: New Legacy is leaning into creating a place for new players to jump into the MMO, as well as capture the nostalgia returning veterans can feel about jumping back into the world. New Legacy is the first new shard the team has released in 15 years, and will have an all new ruleset aimed at making the experience more intuitive, including changes to skill and gear progression, resource gathering, crafting and more. The New Legacy shard will be available to free-to-play accounts, though no official date for its release has been given just yet.
In an FAQ posted on the Ultima Online website, Broadsword also details server transfers, saying that players can't transfer to the New Legacy shard, though at the conclusion of an event called "The Shattering," players could transfer to a production server, taking non-shard bound items with them.
UO detailed The Shattering as well, a cataclysmic event that will take place on the New Legacy server.
"Ultima Online: New Legacy is about forging your new Britannian Legacy! While things like the economy and the game world will be reset during the Shattering, players will have an entire year to forge that legacy! In-game items and events will serve as mementos to that legacy that will be experienced by generations to come. This is your chance to write your character’s place into Britannia’s history!"
On the livestream, Broadsword also reminisced on 23 years of Ultima Online. You can learn more about Ultima Online: New Legacy by watching the livestream announcement, embedded below.
