Ultima IX: Ascension

Ultima IX: Ascension, released in 1999 by Origin Systems for Electronic Arts, is the final entry in the main Ultima line. The series had run since the early 1980s and was known for pairing exploration and combat with moral decisions made by the player's character, the figure the games settled on calling the Avatar.

The ninth instalment broke with its predecessors by rendering the whole world in 3D with the camera outside the character. Earlier entries used overhead views or a mixture of map travel and detailed scenes; here you walk a continuous landscape with towns and caves placed directly inside it.

That transition is also what damaged the game's reputation. On release it demanded a lot of hardware and carried a long list of technical faults, so most of the coverage concerned its condition rather than its content. For the series it was an unfortunate ending, since no further main-line sequel followed.

The record lists a single-player title for MS-DOS/PC. 1999 was the year role-playing games moved en masse into 3D space, and many established brands ran into comparable trouble — the content demands of an open world grew faster than the budgets behind them.

Readers who want to place this one will find its release year, developer, publisher and screenshots on the page, without an option to play it here.