Ultima VIII box cover
Ultima VIII title page


Ultima VIII - Pagan

History:
With Pagan Richard Garriott's programming team made for the first time full use of a new graphics engine in an isometric style and a new sprite creation method. For each animation of the Avatar or the other creatures dozens of sprites were created which made the movement almost fluid. But the costs for this were high: The game was reduced to a single-player game and the number of creatures in the world has been significantly reduced compared with the other games. The day and night cycles and weather conditions have been cancelled, Pagan is just "a world of eternal twilight". Furthermore, some actions like sitting on a chair are not longer possible since this would need again countless sprites. On the other hand, the development team made it possible that the character can climb and jump, but they overused this feature and the resulting game looked more like a Nintendo-style jump and run game. Later Origin released a patch to defang the most difficult action scenes like the moving platforms.

"You have been a thorn in my side far too long!" The Guardian has all hands full to do with the Avatar.
Stranded at the coast of Pagan.


Background:
After the Guardian's helpful hand has grabbed the Avatar out of the void, he is banished to a world which has already been conquered by him. The people of Pagan worship four elemental lords who give them great power in return. The Avatar explores the new world and tries to learn the magic of the elementals. This would allow him to become Titan of Ether himself and create a Black Gate which returns him to Britannia. Yes, that's the whole storyline. Pagan has not been what the fans expected to be. As an independent game it has some merits, but there are almost no references to any other Ultimas except for the Guardian's voice and the Avatar.

The royal palace in Tenebrae.
A ghoul-infested cave.


Recommended Version:
Pagan is a PC-only Ultima. It was planned to support Add-On games like Ultima 7, but due to the bad sales none of them has been released. The PC versions of Ultima 7+8 use a crazy memory management system, thus they are hard to install under Windows. There are patches for Win9x as well as a complete remake of the Ultima 8 engine, called Pentagram which allows to play the game under newer Windows versions.

The catacombs are huge and twisted.
One of many jumping tests in the elemental plane of water.


Statistics:
  • Single-player game
  • 37 different magic spells for 4 magic classes
  • Introduction of ritual magic
  • Dungeons/Outdoors/Buildings 2D
  • On-Screen-mapping: No

Fighting a demon in the elemental plane of fire.
The ethereal plane where the Black Gate finally will be created.


Morale:
The morale of Ultima 8 is difficult to judge. It is an Anti-Ultima which plays in a world which has already been destroyed and conquered by the Guardian, a world where people practice necromancy and demonic rituals and get great power from the elemental lords in return for their absolute obedience. To survive this world and secretively gain enough power to defeat the elemental lords and finally leave Pagan, the Avatar will often need to kiss some butts and do things which are ethically not 100% ok. On the other hand there is still room for some hero stuff like freeing the town from a tyrannical ruler.

Pagan