Even though the heyday of the MMO may seem to have passed, as the huge success of last year's New World shows, there is still a huge appetite for new MMOs these days, and Richard Garriott, the creator of Ultima, is no doubt hoping to create a sequel to his first MMO, Ultima Online He would like to, but so far has not had much success.

Found on GamesRadar's Twitter feed, Garriott shared a brief vision of what a new Ultima Online would look like.

Besides that, he is also keen on bringing back single-player Ultima. The only thing holding him back is that he doesn't own the license; EA has Ultima tucked away in a vault, but it's not completely asleep. Ultima Online is still up and running and is under the control of Broadsword, the company that will soon take over Star Wars: The Old Republic from BioWare.

He had previously proposed this idea to EA. He said, "We repeat this process every five to ten years. They start saying, "That's a great idea," and after internal review, it ends up that they can't or won't do it.

Not surprisingly, risk-averse publishers like EA won't be messing with very expensive MMOs in 2023. And while I would be overjoyed to see "Ultima Online 2," I can understand EA's hesitation, given that Garriott's last two MMOs have been far from successful.

Tabula Rasa closed after only two years, and Shroud of the Avatar, the spiritual successor to Ultima Online, failed to gain a foothold. The assets and rights were sold to another studio, Catnip Games, in 2019, but Garriott had already stepped down as CEO of the original developer, Portalarium.

So while Garriott is an important figure in the history of RPGs and MMOs, his influence has diminished significantly, with only one game released in the past decade. The Ultima name doesn't carry as much weight now, but many MMO players my age would definitely want a sequel, especially with free PvP like Ultima Online, which is rare nowadays.

I don't think Ultima Online 2 will be announced, but maybe Garriott will wear EA down or make a pitch that can't be ignored. Stranger things have happened!