Paul Neurath, creator of Ultima Underworld, has announced a new studio called OtherSide Entertainment, which is resurrecting the RPG series with its first title, Underworld Ascension.
“With Underworld Ascension, we are excited to be bringing back the Underworld franchise, making it more vital than ever before,” Neurath said, in part.
Blue Sky Productions’ Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss was released in 1992. Neurath was the game’s designer, with Richard Garriot as director and Warren Spector as a producer. OtherSide’s Underworld Ascension is headed to PC at an unannounced date.
“For those of us lifelong gamers that go back to the early days the Underworld franchise, created by Paul Neurath, represents a watershed event on what an immersive 3D true role-playing game can be like,” said Garriott. “In these days, where we are seeing many of these greats return, I personally am as excited about Underworld as any game I can imagine.”
“As Producer on the original Ultima Underworld games, I’ll never forget the first time I saw a working prototype of the game – I felt as if the world had just changed,” Spector said. “As the first fully-textured, real-time, first-person game, Underworld paved the way for every other first-person game that followed. If that doesn’t qualify as ‘changing the world’, I don’t know what does!”
(via Polygon)