Ultima V

Warriors of Destiny was the first Ultima to implement a time-of-day system in which the sun rises and sets, and non-player characters follow daily routine schedules.

As in Ultima IV, the player can interact with non-player characters (NPCs) by typing a word or phrase that signifies the topic to discuss. The NPCs will say what they care to share about a subject when it is mentioned, and the player can repeat key words used in the NPC's response to ask for further details. Sometimes, an NPC will ask a question of the player, and the player must give an appropriate response to keep the conversation active. As in Ultima IV, only the first four letters of player spoken text are read by the game, i.e. for 'shrine', the player need only type 'shri'.

After having mastered the eight Virtues, attaining Avatarhood, and retrieving the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom in the previous game, the Avatar is summoned back to Britannia by his old comrades Iolo and Shamino using a magic coin, which was included as a trinket in the game's box. Upon arrival he is greeted by Shamino, but they immediately come under attack from the three powerful beings known as the Shadowlords. After repelling them with the amulet (a feat that cannot be replicated later in the game), the Avatar brings the heavily wounded Shamino to Iolo's nearby hut where Iolo fills him in on recent developments: Lord British has been lost on an expedition into the Underworld, and a tyrant known as Lord Blackthorn now rules Britannia in his stead. Blackthorn enforces a strict, rigid version of the Virtues, which leads to results that are anything but virtuous (such as, "Thou shalt not lie, or thou shalt lose thy tongue", "Thou shalt donate half thy income to charity, or thou shalt have no income" or "Thou shalt enforce the laws of virtue, or thou shalt die as a heretic."), while the mysterious and terrifying Shadowlords terrorize the eight cities of Britannia.

Over the course of the game the Avatar learns that the Shadowlords sprang from three shards of Mondain's Gem of Immortality (destroyed at the conclusion of Ultima I). Representing Falsehood, Hatred and Cowardice - the antithesis for Truth, Love and Courage, the three principles of the Avatar - they have corrupted Blackthorn and subverted his rule.

Warriors of Destiny was the last Ultima developed on the Apple II; the limits of that system (excluding the 16-bit Apple IIGS) were increasingly becoming a hindrance to further technological advance, and thus all later games were developed on PC systems. This was also the last time in which Ultima creator Richard Garriott did a major share of the actual coding; in the later parts he acted as a game designer only. In his approach to Lord Blackthorn and his involvement in the overarching narrative, Garriott wanted to create a more insidious villain that wasn't just passively waiting for the heroes to arrive.

The use of telescopes in the game was inspired by Garriott's experience as an amateur astronomer; Garriott programmed the game to accurately depict planetary orbits.

By 1990, the game had sold over 100,000 copies in the United States.

Computer Gaming World stated that "the game system and technology are strides ahead" of Ultima IV. 's The magazine's Scorpia described Ultima V as "well worth the wait", citing improved graphics and storyline. Minor criticisms were directed at flaws in the documentation and combat system. In 1993 she called the game "a worthy follow-up ...

A fan-made recreation of Ultima V, titled Ultima V: Lazarus, was released on December 22, 2005 by an international team of game designers. The original plot and mechanics were recreated in the game engine of the 2002 video game Dungeon Siege, modernizing the original Ultima V with 3D graphics. This remake was reviewed positively upon release.