Worlds of Ultima 1 and 2 Available for Free on GOG.com

GOG.com delivers the goods once again.

GOG.com has been living up to its original pre-rebrand promise to provide “Good Old Games” for a long time now. We’ve seen a ton of resurrected classics tweaked and revamped to run on modern machines — current mission Quest for Glory falls into that category — but there are still a few notable exceptions. The back catalogue of “Good Old Games” is, after all, rather sizeable.

One game series that several Squaddies have repeatedly expressed interest in replaying is the Ultima VI spinoff Worlds of Ultima. Going by the assumption that the black moonstone the Avatar finds at the beginning of Ultima VI allows one to go anywhere, Worlds of Ultima explores two very different alternate settings, each providing their own sprawling RPG adventure to challenge.

As it happens, these two classic RPGs are now available on GOG.com. For free. Yay!

Worlds of Ultima: Savage Empire takes place in a world of jungles and dinosaurs, providing a very Journey to the Center of the Earth sort of feel. Meanwhile, Ultima Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams is an H.G. Wells-style Victorian sci-fi adventure. Both run on modified versions of the Ultima VI engine, which means plenty of top-down adventuring and deep interaction with the game world. For those who have never played Ultima games, however, these two are widely regarded as good places to start. And for the very reasonable price of absolutely nothing at all, there’s certainly no risk whatsoever in giving them a shot.

Grab Savage Empire here and Martian Dreams here.