Ultima VII

Ultima VII introduced major changes in the Ultima series. The most serious alteration is that as far as the player is concerned, the world is no longer tile and grid-based; tiles are still used internally (in a largely improved way where the tiles themselves are smaller and frequently grouped), but they no longer affect character and monster movement or the item placement the same way. The maps are also more visibly multi-layered, and objects and things can be stacked on top of each other. This can also affect movement, and be part of puzzles; some places are inaccessible unless the player stacks items to form stairs.

A striking visual change is that the gameworld now takes up the entire screen in its original DOS environment, while previous Ultimas used a substantial portion of the screen for text, dialogue, buttons, icons, and the like. While a top-down view is preserved, elements such as building walls and characters (including the Avatar and companions) are depicted at a leftward angle, creating a pseudo-isometric appearance.

The game begins with what appears to be the game introduction on the Avatar's own computer screen. Suddenly, the screen is filled with static, and a red creature who calls himself The Guardian proclaims:

Avatar! Know that Britannia has entered into a new age of enlightenment! Know that the time has finally come for the one true Lord of Britannia to take His place at the head of His people! Under my guidance, Britannia will flourish.

Ultima VII was the first game where Richard Garriott did any sort of planning ahead for future games in the series, laying out a preplanned trilogy which would conclude with Ultima IX.

Elements of Ultima VII were inspired by game developer Origin Systems' conflicts with competitor (and later owner) Electronic Arts. Origin Systems' corporate slogan was "We Create Worlds", while the main antagonist of the story – the Guardian – is presented as a "Destroyer of Worlds". The three evil "Generators" created by the Guardian in the game take the physical shapes of the contemporary Electronic Arts logo: a cube, a sphere, and a tetrahedron. Elizabeth and Abraham, two apparently benevolent characters who later turn out to be murderers, have the initials "E" and "A". Electronic Arts would acquire Origin later that same year, on September 25, 1992.

Computer Gaming World's Scorpia in 1992 praised Ultima VII: The Black Gate's "first-class" graphics, sound, and realism, called the story "engrossing", and liked the mouse- and keyboard-based user interface, but criticized the slow performance ("I estimate that the slow speed of the game added about a week to my playing time"), several serious bugs, and combat ("one of the least fun aspects of the game"). She concluded that the game gives "me very mixed feelings ... Getting through this Ultima will require a certain amount of patience and forebearance". In 1993 she wrote that "the game has its annoying aspects ...

it is certainly worth playing". Charles Ardai acknowledged the widespread sentiment that after six installments the Ultima series had been done to death, but argued that "Ultima VII is not more of the same. It is daring and unusual, has a sophisticated interface and story, takes full advantage of both its own history and the conventions of the genre, and manages to be at once grounded in tradition and unpredictable". Ardai praised the plot as the best in the series, stating that it is highly original, evokes genuine emotion, and serves as an allegory for problems in the real world.

GOG.com has made the game available in a manner that allows it to work on modern operating systems, through a custom DOSBox installation.

Exult is a cross-platform recreation of the Ultima VII engine, licensed under the GNU GPL-2.0-or-later, which allows the game to be played on modern machines and across different operating systems. Exult's array of tools have enabled fans to take the game apart and modify it, for instance for fan translation projects. Exult contributors have also expanded the game by enabling Serpent Isle paper doll graphics in Black Gate, and fixed some of the bugs and design flaws found in Serpent Isle, which were originally left in due to the rushed release. There are some features of the original game still to be implemented (for example, the way NPCs interact with the game world is not fully recreated) and some extra features added by the Exult team. The Exult project was noticed and positively commented upon by Richard Garriott.