Ultima IV

Instead of simply choosing stats to assign points to as in the first three Ultima games, players are asked various ethical dilemmas by a gypsy fortune-teller using remotely tarot-like cards of the eight virtues. These situations do not have one correct resolution; rather, players must rank the Eight Virtues and whichever stands as their highest priority determines the type of character they will play. For example, choosing Compassion creates a Bard, Honor a Paladin, Sacrifice a Tinker, and so on. This is also the first Ultima where playing as a human is necessary, eliminating other races such as the elves, dwarves, and "bobbits" found in previous games (although even in the first three Ultimas where they could be chosen as player characters, there were never any non-player characters (NPC) of those non-human races).

Although each profession embodies a particular Virtue, to become an Avatar the player must achieve enlightenment in all eight virtues. Virtue affects how NPCs interact with the player; enlightenment in the Virtues is achieved through the player's actions as well as through meditation at shrines. Shrines to each of the Virtues are scattered about Britannia, each requiring the player to possess the corresponding Virtue's rune before allowing entry. Through meditation and correctly repeating the Virtue's mantra three times at the shrine, the player gains insight and ultimately enlightenment in the Virtue.

Ultima IV is among the few role-playing games, and perhaps the first, in which the game's story does not center on asking a player character to overcome a tangible ultimate evil. The story instead focuses on the player character's moral self-improvement.

After the defeat of each of the members of the Triad of Evil in the previous three Ultima games, the world of Sosaria underwent some radical changes in geography: Three quarters of the world disappeared, continents rose and sank, and new cities were built to replace the ones that were lost. Eventually the world, now unified under Lord British's rule, was renamed Britannia. Lord British felt the people lacked purpose after their great struggles against the Triad were over, and he was concerned with their spiritual well-being in this unfamiliar new age of relative peace, so he proclaimed the Quest of the Avatar: He needed someone to step forth and become the shining example for others to follow.

Richard Garriott has said that he received no customer feedback for his first three games because neither California Pacific Computer nor Sierra On-Line forwarded him mail. After his own company released Ultima III, Garriott—who attended an interdenominational Christian Sunday School as a teenager—realized (partly from letters of enraged parents) that in the earlier games, immoral actions like stealing and murder of peaceful citizens had been necessary or at least very useful actions in order to win the game, and that such features might be objectionable. Garriott said he wanted to become a good storyteller and make certain the story had content, and that 90% of the games out there, including his first three Ultima games, were what he called "go kill the evil bad guy" stories. He said, "Ultima IV was the first one that had ethical overtones in it, and it also was just a better-told story."

Shay Addams, Garriott's official biographer, wrote, "He decided that if people were going to look for hidden meaning in his work when they didn't even exist, he would introduce ideas and symbols with meaning and significance he deemed worthwhile, to give them something they could really think about." To encourage a sense of responsibility for their character's actions, players were intended to feel they were playing themselves transported into a fantasy realm, not a separate person. Garriott removed gameplay elements he believed would prevent players from identifying personally with their character, such as playing as a non-human.

Ultima IV was the top game on Billboard's list of software best sellers for February and March 1986. In the United States, Ultima IV had sold more than 100,000 copies by August 1986. Global sales of Ultima IV had surpassed 400,000 copies by May 1989.

Scorpia of Computer Gaming World in 1986 called it "an incredible game", only criticizing the fact that experience only came from combat, which she stated became "tedious". Scorpia concluded, "What are you waiting for? This will be a classic... go get it!!"