Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn Officially Announced
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EA ANNOUNCES ULTIMA ONLINE: KINGDOM REBORN (working title)
The game that firmly established the MMORPG genre
receives a massive visual overhaul and new content in 2007
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Aug. 24, 2006 The legendary kingdom of Britannia and the online world that helped forge PC gaming's fastest growing genre is about to be reborn. Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn (working title), an exciting new upgrade to the genre-defining Ultima Onlineâ„¢. Much more than an expansion, Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn is a complete make-over of the online world with a new graphics engine, a state-of-the-art user interface and enough new content for even the most seasoned players. Additionally, nine years of content and features will be preserved and enhanced with all-new graphics, making Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn one of the largest and deepest massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) in existence.
(It's been nine years since Ultima Online first proved that online games could be very popular,) said EA Mythic General Manager, Mark Jacobs. (And now, thanks to the hard work and dedication of the UO team and the support of the players over the years, a new day is dawning for this groundbreaking game.)
The new graphics engine will maintain the game's original perspective while giving it a bold new look that takes advantage of 3D-accelerated special effects. The team is busy re-drawing more than 9,000 pieces of art with which the entire map of Ultima Online -- more than 14 million tiles -- will be re-built, giving the whole game a vibrant new look.
Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn is also a full-featured expansion pack with a wide array of new content and features that will be announced later this year. The new expansion will include a playable race, and add to or enhance many of the key features of Ultima Online: epic battles versus powerful monsters, deep dangerous dungeons, player-versus-player combat, creative housing design, crafting, and much more.
EA Mythic, formerly Mythic Entertainment, and the Ultima Online team are working together to bring about one of the most ambitious upgrades of any operating MMORPG. Created in such a way that current players who choose not to upgrade will be able to play without interruption, Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn will ship in 2007 for PC. Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn has not yet been rated by the ESRB. For more information about Ultima Online, please visit www.uo.com. New art assets for Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn can be found at www.info.ea.com.
About Ultima Online
Ultima Online first launched in September, 1997 and was the first MMORPG to reach the 100,000 subscriber base, far exceeding that of any game that went before it. Since then, it has added seven expansion packs and dozens of free content updates, making it one of the deepest, largest MMORPGs ever created. It is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest continuously running MMORPG in history.
About Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for videogame systems, personal computers, mobile phones and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EA SPORTSâ„¢, EAâ„¢, EA SPORTS BIGâ„¢ and POGOâ„¢. In fiscal 2006, EA posted revenue of $2.95 billion and had 27 titles that sold more than one million copies. EA's homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA's products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.
