Ultima had a significant influence on the majority of the games released after it but, as it seems, it will now, practically, have a direct spiritual successor. It's no wonder as Richard Garriott himself is working on it. He is the "big daddy" of Ultima as well.
Shroud of the Avatar is an MMO based in a fantasy universe that really resembles the one we remember from Ultima. It is a very ambitious project and the development took more than 3 years at this point to be completed. But, by the looks of it, we will finally be able to get our hands on it starting from next month.
The initial announcement managed to generate some real hype there. The crowdfunding campaign managed to gather more than £1.5 million upon its debut back in April 2013 and, exactly a year and a half later, the game already entered the pre-release cycle on Steam. It was already filled with plenty of different customization options, the economy that was already almost 100% functional, different multiplayer options and even a single-player offline feature on top of it as well.
But, all that will be expanded when the game is finally launched and the release date is set for March 27. You can download the free trial from the official website. As it is stated, it will have plenty of material from the live game and you can spend some quality time with this one before the actual game comes out.
Check out the following link for more info about the game itself and for a free trial. We will see whether the game lives up to our expectations when it finally gets released.