One of the most important names in computer RPG history may soon be back with its creator. Richard Garriott, the designer behind the Ultima series, says he is reclaiming the rights to the franchise from Electronic Arts and expects to have them back in 2027.
Garriott explained the plan in a new interview with Jesse Petrilla, as reported by VGC. He sold his studio Origin Systems and the Ultima series to EA in 1992. Under US copyright law, original authors can terminate a transfer of their copyright after 35 years, and Garriott says that window is almost open.
“There’s a really weird United States copyright law that says if you are the original holder of a copyright and you assign it or sell it to any publisher or any other entity, after 35 years, you can just take it back,” Garriott said. “There’s no money that needs to transfer. All you have to do is tell them a year before you take it back. And so in April of this year, I told Electronic Arts, ‘by the way, I’m going to take the copyrights to Ultima back,’ and they wrote back and said, ‘yeah, we know that’s the law. We will act accordingly.'”
Garriott says he is now in active talks with EA about whether the two sides should work on anything together before the rights revert. “We’ll figure it out, but I get it back officially in 2027,” he said. “At the very least, it means I could re-release the earlier Ultimas, but it also means I could sequel them.” EA hasn’t commented publicly on the plan.
Ultima helped define the computer RPG, and its 1997 spin-off Ultima Online was one of the first big online role-playing worlds. The last mainline entry was 1999’s Ultima IX: Ascension. EA canceled Origin’s in-development projects around 2000, Garriott left, and the studio shut down in 2004. EA’s later revival attempts included 2013’s free-to-play Ultima Forever.
Since then, Garriott has founded other studios, made the MMO Tabula Rasa with NCsoft, and spent 12 days aboard the International Space Station in 2008. He hasn’t announced a new Ultima project, but for the first time in more than three decades the decision would be his to make.
These days EA’s biggest releases are annual sports games, like the EA Sports FC 27 launch in September, so a return to Britannia was never likely to come from EA.
