Electronic Arts May Lose Iconic Franchise That Inspired Baldur's Gate 3 and Divinity Creators

This month, gamers had a reason to remember Ultima — iconic role-playing games. Earlier, in an interview, the creator of Divinity and Baldur's Gate 3, Swen Vincke, confessed his love for this franchise.

In June of this year, Inside Games reported that Ultima creator Richard Garriott intends to reclaim the rights to the franchise. Since 1992, they have been in the hands of Electronic Arts, when Richard sold the game development company Origin Systems to the publisher. Subsequently, several more installments were released, such as Ultima Online, Ultima Forever, and Lord of Ultima, but overall the series remained in oblivion in Electronic Arts' portfolio.

However, this may soon change. It recently became known that EA has filed applications for the registration of new trademarks related to Ultima. A representative from Inside Games decided to contact Garriott to ask if he knew anything about this.

The creator of Ultima said that he repeatedly tried to cooperate with Electronic Arts to revive the franchise:

Now Garriott is going to reclaim the copyrights to Ultima from Electronic Arts. This became possible thanks to a provision in American copyright law. It allows authors or their heirs to reclaim rights to a work after 35 years.

The deal to sell the company and transfer rights took place in 1992, meaning Ultima could be reclaimed as early as 2027. "I've been waiting... and now, finally, the time has come!" Garriott said in an interview.