Ultima 6 Project - Fact Sheet
Parcival, 2003-09-10

Introduction
The Archeon team will remake the sixth instalment in the Ultima series: The False Prophet. In an interview, project leader Sliding Dragon explains why;

When I decided that The False Prophet should be translated (…), I did so because the story, while fine, was lacking in several areas, most especially continuity. I'd like to fill those gaps with some integrated and enhanced storylines.(..) Also, geography: what happened to Windmere? Bordermarch? Farthing? The Temple of Virtue in Cove? It's only been twenty years since the events of Warriors of Destiny. Should these buildings have disappeared so suddenly? The excuse is the great upheaval sank them all. That's a pretty weak rationale.

The Ultima 6 Remake will feature new characters, improved weaponry, an improved plot and enhanced dialogue.

Engine
The U6 project will use the Dungeon Siege engine in a heavily adapted form. The created a brand new dialog engine that incorporates (in current development) advanced NPC memory, setting flags for conversation branches on other characters and branching depending on the gender of the Avatar.
Furthermore, we expect horseback riding and (of course) the possibility to fly a carpet :).

Story
The improved plot mainly deals with making the Gargoyle thread be much more present: their fight will be better visualised and be more interactive. The game will become less linear in the first part. The story should unfolds in a more natural way as the Avatar explores new areas to gain access to others.
The biggest change will be a restriction on using the black orb. At first, you won't be able to travel the entire map. The orb will bring the Avatar only to regions with shrines he has already visited. In general, the Archon teams will do its utmost best to fill in all the plot holes while maintaining the spirit of the original story.
By doing this, there will be a lot of "expanded" plot. This will include The Wayward Avatar,  a Sleeping Bull type establishment set up between Cove and Minoc on the King's Highway. Furthermore the folling quote reveals a bit on the plot expansions.
Q: There's going to be the Official Property Surveyor in Britain - you ever wonder how people get their land? They get it from him. He's the impetus for a couple cool side quests. He might even sell the Avatar a house if the price is right.

World
The world of the Ultima 6 remake will show some new locations (like The Wayward Avatar mentioned above) and some of the ones that were in U5, but (for no good reason) didn't make it to the original U6. The final product will count about 200 DS regions (where the original DS single player campaign had no more than 30). The new Ultima 6 will have many new characters. The original only had about 200 people on it.

Team
The Archon team counts about 15 members. Founder is Matt Hutaff, founder of the webdeisign company Layme Duck Consulting, but to most Ultima adepts known as Sliding Dragon. If you ever wondered why his name Sliding dragon, check out one of his very entertaining websites (this is a bit of-topic for ultimadot - sorry). He was joined by a group of talented people, among whom current project manager Jesse ‘Zephyr' Strachman. Archon has been plagued (as many remake projects) by team members leaving. We may consider the leave of spokesman and project leader Sabre edge a major loss, but the team is still going strong. Even though they have job openings aplenty, they hint at a demo coming soon.

Release
There is no release date set for The Ultima 6 Project. You will need to have DS installed on your PC and probably also own U6, for copyright reasons.