Ultima VI

Ultima VI: The False Prophet, released in 1990, is the sixth part in the computer role-playing game series of Ultima. It was the last in the "Age of Enlightenment" trilogy.

Some years after Lord British has returned to power, the Avatar is captured and tied on a sacrificial altar, about to be sacrificed by red demon-like creatures, the gargoyles. The Warriors of Destiny suddenly appear, save the Avatar and collect the sacred text the gargoyle priest was holding. In Castle Britannia, the Avatar learns that the shrines of Virtue were captured by the gargoyles and he embarks on a quest to rescue Britannia from the invaders.

The game deals with issues such as cultural differences, racism and xenophobia, among others. It manages to suggest in-game solutions to these issues, without trying to deny any basis for them in some "politically correct" way.

This game ended the use of multiple scales; in earlier games a town, castle, or dungeon would be represented as a single symbol on the world map, which then expanded into a full sub-map when entering the structure. Now, the whole map used a single scale with the towns and other places, seamlessly integrated into the main map; dungeons were now also represented in 2D instead of 3D. The game kept the basic tile system and screen layout of the three preceding parts, but altered the look into a much more colorful pseudo-isometric view, to take full advantage of the newly-released VGA graphics cards for PCs.

Non-player characters had their portraits shown when talked to, something that would not have been feasible on Apple IIs. It was one of the first major PC games directly targeted to PC systems equipped with VGA graphics and a mouse, when the big "gaming computer" was still the Commodore Amiga. The game supported sound cards for music as well, which were not yet common when it was released. Other sound effects, such as the clashing of swords, magical zaps, or explosions, were still played through the PC speaker.

The Ultima VI engine was also used for the spin-off series Worlds of Ultima.