Old news? Perhaps, but these two projects are one of the better kept secrets of the modding world. The Ultima series are classics for a reason – a long-running franchise of very forward-thinking roleplaying games that ran all the way through the 80s up until the end of the 90s, sadly ending on a sour note due to extensive publisher meddling. The one key weakness of the games is their age. While the combat engines are solid and the settings and stories excellent, the technology lets them down, which is why these two full-length remakes are worthy of your attention.

Giant rats? Walking skeletons? Armored heroes? Trad-RPG checklist filling up!

Ultima 5: Lazarus and The Ultima 6 Project are full, in-depth recreations of two of the finest RPGs of their time. For those who aren’t too familiar with the franchise, a good (and humorous) first look can be found through Spoony’s informative retrospective series of videos here, although beware of spoilers for 5 & 6 if you plan on making these remakes your first experience with the franchise. Updating the games from top-down viewed turn-based adventures to 3D and realtime, but keeping all the core elements, these are really impressive labors of love, and well worth playing even for non-fans of the series.

Telling the story of The Avatar – a hero from ‘our’ world and time, summoned into the magical land of Britannia (formerly Sosaria – see Spoony’s videos for the reasons) – you’re happily returned home after your previous adventure, where you managed to unite the land under a new faith, and left it in the guiding hands of Lord British. Things seemed good last time you checked in, but upon being called back to Britannia, you find that things have gone rather pear-shaped. Lord British is missing, and the altrustic teachings that you left the people to mull over in your last adventure have been corrupted, and are being used to oppress and torment the people under a new religious dictatorship.

There is a HUGE game-world to explore here, filled with dungeons.

It’s pretty intense stuff, and you actually have to watch what you say in conversations. After all, this is an oppressive theocratic dictatorship, and while you might be the savior figure of their religion, you’re definitely not liked by the new administration, and it might work in your favor to keep your head down and your tongue held at first. It’s a true RPG, letting you undertake a great many things in whatever order you see fit, with party composition of your choosing. There’s plenty of freedom in both games, and the manuals included are a recommended read if you want to get your head around all the new gameplay mechanics they introduce on top of the basic Dungeon Siege action.

Combat is detailed real-time-with-pause stuff, feeling a bit like a much deeper version of Dungeon Siege combined with a more controlled version of Ultima 7′s chaotic dogpiling. Wandering off the beaten path early on can get you killed very quickly and violently, so you need to take care and save often, at least at first, but you’ll eventually grow back to legendary levels of power, leading a large and capable party.

The in-depth magic system of the Ultima games returns!

Dungeon Siege might not be everyone’s first thought as the best framework to update the Ultima series on, but what the core game engine lacked in graphical fanciness and technical perks, it more than made up for in flexibility and mod support, allowing complex dialogue trees, a large persistent world, intercontinental travel and more to all be done in respectably solid early 2000s style. While there’s no digital stores offering Dungeon Siege itself, you can pick up a copy of the Legends of Aranna version (includes the expansion and comes pre-patched) second-hand for $5 or less in many places. It runs fine on modern operating systems and machines, and even runs in native widescreen with a quick tweak to an INI file.

As an interesting aside, you can also get Ultima 4 for free via Good Old Games, and update it to slightly more modern spec with the XU4 engine, meaning that – so long as you have Dungeon Siege – you can play the entire second ‘trilogy’ in this classic epic completely free. Not too shabby, eh? It may be the year 2012 already, but there’s no time like the present to dust off your chainmail, and clean up that old (but still fashionable) ankh-motif tunic for some virtuous monster-stabbing. These two remakes are well worth playing for both Ultima fans, and anyone who likes a deep, involving RPG.

[Ultima 5: Lazarus & The Ultima 6 Project]