Richard Garriott‘s Portalarium studio today officially released Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues for PC. Shroud of the Avatar is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game and a spiritual successor to Garriott’s landmark Ultima series.
Garriott also goes by Lord British, his in-game persona from the Ultima series. Shroud of the Avatar received nearly $2 million in crowdfunding from Kickstarter in 2013. The game entered early access on Steam in 2014, where it has received numerous updates.
Now, the Ultima Online spiritual successor is finally officially launching. The Ultima series start in 1981, but Ultima Online took the single-player franchise into a multiplayer world in 1997. Ultima Online was a landmark moment for online gaming, creating precedents for the emerging MMO genre. Now Shroud of the Avatar is going after that same MMO audience.
“It’s exciting to have reached this major milestone,” said Garriott in a press release sent to GamesBeat. “Our fans and backers have been extremely patient and incredibly helpful with us every step of the way of our journey. With Shroud I wanted to go back to my roots of game design. We wanted to create a rich story and also bring back a sandbox style of play … a style that’s immersive and interactive.”
Portalarium is planning monthly content updates following this official launch.