An iconic and influential RPG series that’s owned by publisher Electronic Arts seems to be in the process of making a comeback. Over the past couple of decades, EA has come to be known primarily for its biggest franchises like Madden, EA Sports FC (formerly FIFA), and Battlefield, just to name a few. During the earlier days of the company, though, EA used to publish countless other games that belonged to a variety of differing genres. Now, after letting one of its beloved franchises from this era sit idle for roughly two decades, EA seems to be planning to bring it back in some capacity.
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Earlier this month, EA filed a pair of new trademarks for “Ultima”. Debuting all the way back in 1981, the original Ultima went on to be a landmark fantasy RPG. The game was so successful that it spawned a multitude of sequels in the years to follow. Electronic Arts would eventually acquire the Ultima IP for itself in the early 1990s, and went on to release a handful of additional installments. These games ended up not being as popular with fans, however, which has since resulted in Ultima largely being untouched by EA since the turn of the century. Now, based on these trademark filings, it looks like EA could be preparing to do something new with the series.
While it’s exciting to think about a revival of Ultima happening in the future, it’s still hard to know what to make of these trademarks. Publishers like EA often reapply for trademarks like this quite often to ensure that they retain the rights to them. As such, this could just be a basic process by EA to guarantee that the Ultima name remains in its control.
Then again, the fact that it applied for two Ultima trademarks at once is quite curious. Logic would suggest that EA wouldn’t be so aggressive in locking down two trademarks at once unless it had something imminent in the pipeline tied to Ultima. This situation is one that we’ve seen play out in the past with other companies, which ultimately resulted in new game announcements later on. Because of this, it’s not a stretch to believe that EA is now doing the same thing.
If EA is indeed preparing for a new Ultima release, it’s hard to know what it could be. While a wholly new entry in the series could be wise given that the franchise has been dormant for so long, a remake of one of the earliest Ultima games could also be a possibility. Regardless of what the truth might be, hopefully, these trademarks are proof that we’ll be getting a new Ultima title of some sort before long.
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