Ultima Online: Third Dawn Announced

This morning, at the first annual Ultima Online World Faire in Austin, Origin announced Third Dawn, a retail expansion for its successful online role-playing game. Ultima Online: Third Dawn will offer an all-new landmass to explore, new monsters to fight, and new treasures to find. Moreover, the expansion will also feature an improved graphics engine for enhanced special effects and much more fluid character animations. As such, this newly revised graphics engine will mark the first major change to the game's graphics since it was originally released in 1997.

Ultima Online: Third Dawn focuses on the land of Ilshenaur, a completely new addition to the Ultima universe. The game will retain Ultima Online's isometric perspective, but its new 3D characters and enhanced special effects will require a 3D graphics card with at least 8MB of video RAM. However, Origin does not expect that the game will have any additional system requirements. Ultima Online: Third Dawn is an optional expansion for Ultima Online players, who will be able to readily transfer their characters to and from the new land.

Origin has not set a price point for Third Dawn at this time but has announced that the game will enter an open beta-testing period at which time Ultima Online players will be able to order the beta version of Third Dawn for a small shipping and handling fee. Any further changes to Third Dawn will be available for these players through downloadable patches, so they won't need to purchase the retail version.

Further information on Ultima Online: Third Dawn is available at the newly opened Web site devoted to the expansion. Stay tuned for more information on this new edition of the long-running online role-playing game.