U8 Ether Gate
by Mark Barazzuol · Role-playing
A new open engine for Ultima VIII: Pagan, with companions, turn-based combat, the Eight Virtues and a new spellbook.
THE GATE IS OPEN. PAGAN WILL NEVER BE THE SAME.
Cast down by the Guardian onto a world of fire, stone and fear, the Avatar stands alone... but not for long. U8 Ether Gate is a brand-new engine for Ultima VIII: Pagan, built from scratch to breathe new life into the 1994 classic. Bring your own copy of the game and step through the gate into the Pagan you always wished it could be.
★ GATHER YOUR FELLOWSHIP • Eight brand-new companions wait on the shores near Devon's camp, and up to six can join you at once. • Each has their own portrait, personality, home and story. They follow, fight, heal, cast spells, pick locks and chat with you on the road. • Fight side by side with Nerissa, a heroine with her own hand-drawn figure, made just for this game. • Every companion has their own character sheet with a large painted portrait and their gear in a row of slots. Spellcasters keep to robes and daggers; warriors wear the plate.
★ COMMAND THE BATTLEFIELD • Optional turn-based combat in the grand tradition of Ultima V: time stops, and every warrior acts in order of Dexterity. • Move, strike, cast, use an item or stand your ground, or put the whole party on Auto and watch the steel fly. • Prefer the original's real-time action? It's one switch away.
★ BECOME THE AVATAR AGAIN • The Eight Virtues return! Honesty, Compassion, Valor, Justice, Sacrifice, Honor, Spirituality and Humility each glow as a gem on your character sheet. • Keep your promises, lay the restless dead to rest, show mercy, and watch each gem burn brighter. • Your deeds change the world itself: as your virtue grows, sunlight breaks through the gloom, colour returns to the land, the monsters grow fewer, the music lifts, and the people of Tenebrae start greeting their hero. • The ending remembers what you did.
★ MASTER THE ARCANE • A gorgeous new spellbook in the style of Ultima VII (press G). Every spell you learn is written in, school by school, with the casts you have left. • Double-click to cast, straight from your reagents and talismans. Scrolls get a page of their own. • Grant Peace finally lays the dead to rest, and Rock Flesh turns your friends to living stone, just as the old books promised.
★ GROW STRONGER • Real levels and experience: every victory, quest and discovery counts. • Seek out trainers, rare tomes, potent elixirs and perilous ordeals to forge your legend. • New creatures stalk the land: wraiths, lava wyrms, storm eyes and things that lurk beneath the water.
★ A HUNDRED SMALL MIRACLES • Smooth scrolling, zoom, gamepad support and easier ledge climbing. No more pixel-perfect jumps! • A side-panel HUD with your party, a scrolling message log and quick combat buttons. • Click to walk and act, TAKE ALL looting, one-click inventory sorting, and a red X that tells you why ("Too heavy!", "Too far away!"). • A full world atlas, autosaves, and the official v2.12 patch's quick-save and item keys. • Dozens of the original's bugs, dead ends, holes in the map and typos fixed (and every fix can be switched off).
★ LOST TREASURES RESTORED • The undead invasion of Tenebrae, cut from the original release, rises again. • The Skull of Quakes finally shakes the earth. • New conversations bring old faces to life.
★ FOR THE ADVENTURER WHO WANTS IT ALL • A powerful debug mode (F10): jump to any point in the story, cast every spell without limit, set your virtues, call your companions home and more. • A built-in world editor to reshape Pagan and paint new lands of your own.
★ PLAY IT YOUR WAY • Runs natively on Linux, or right in your web browser. Your game files never leave your computer. • Works with your own copy of Ultima VIII: Pagan, patched or not. Every new feature can be switched off for the pure 1994 experience. • Free and open source (GPLv3). Source and downloads on GitHub.
Pagan awaits its saviour. Will you answer the call?
(U8 Ether Gate contains none of the original game's files. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Electronic Arts or Origin Systems.)
Built upon Ultima VIII: Pagan (1994).