Ultima creator Richard Garriott to take back series rights from EA in 2027
Ultima is going back to its creator.
Richard Garriott has confirmed he will regain control of the Ultima series from Electronic Arts in 2027, more than three decades after he sold it on. The creator of the long-running fantasy role-playing series said he notified EA in April of his intent to reclaim the copyrights, with the return to take effect next year Video Games Chronicle.
The mechanism is Section 203 of the US Copyright Act, a rule that lets authors end old transfers of their work after 35 years. Garriott told the outlet the law covers his original Ultima work. That timeline fits. He sold Origin Systems, the studio behind Ultima, to EA in 1992 for US$30 million.
That sale shaped Ultima for a generation. Garriott left EA, while the publisher held the rights. The last mainline entry, Ultima IX, was released in 1999. EA later tried twice to revive the name as a free-to-play game, free to download and funded by in-game purchases, most recently with Ultima Forever, released in 2013.
Garriott first outlined the plan in June, when Time Extension reported his intent to reclaim the series. He said at the time that “Lord British’s Ultima”, a reference to his longstanding creator persona, would regain all the copyrights of his original work. Time Extension published that report, titled ‘Richard Garriott Is Reclaiming The Rights To Ultima’, on 22 June 2026.
A clean break is not necessarily the plan. Garriott said he is in active discussions with EA about potential Ultima projects together. No titles, dates or formats have been announced.
For fans, this means clarity after years of quiet. Ultima helped define the role-playing game on PC, with its open worlds, moral choices and persistent fantasy setting. It has been largely dormant as a series for more than a decade. A single rights holder with a direct link to its origins changes who decides what happens next.
