Underworld Ascendant brought to you by Zombie Looking Glass

When I was a teen I worked at Babbages. We received a video showing off Ultimate Underworld on a VHS tape and I was blown away. I took it home and watched it dozens of times. It was the first time I had seen smooth scrolling 3D texture mapping. The game did not disappoint. So good.

To say I am excited for a new Underworld is an understatement.

Wow, that music really brings me back. I might have to reinstall my old Soundblaster card.

-Tom

220 5 1

Feeling sad that Ultima Underworld fell into my Great Gaming Gap between when my Amiga became more or less irrelevant (early-to-mid 90s) and when I got my first gameworthy PC ('98).

I bought it on GoG and will properly give it a go sooner or later, but as always with me, it’s much easier to retro game when you were familiar with the game/interface back in the day.

Really excited for Underworld Ascendant. I originally pledged at $20 but upped it to get physical goodies (I’m a sucker for those). Here’s hoping it is as great at UUW1 and UUW2. Also excited that supposedly there will be some lore tie-ins with those games in UWA as well.

With a MIDI daughter card attached or don’t bother. :D

Speaking of which, whatever happen to the Tracy Hickman companion novella that was a $5 pledge during the campaign? I don’t think it’s released yet and I don’t hear much talk of it anymore.

Novella is coming along. All that kickstarter stuff is in the pipeline for production.

Just installed the pre-alpha last night, can’t wait to delve in this weekend. Between this and Shroud of the Avatar I’m basking in Ultima-esque glory!

Nice story up on Gixel:

Neurath adds that Underworld is not meant to be a nostalgic look back. Sure, things like the Silver Sapling checkpoint system are in the game, but that sort of nostalgia is only lightly used.

“It’s really trying to reimagine what an immersive sim would look like today. The same with System Shock,” he says. “We’re trying to take everything we learned from making games and show where immersive sims can go. Where can we continue to innovate and push it forward?”

The temptation to make a direct sequel is further counter-balanced by a desire to reach the largest audience possible. “Most of the audience for games today wasn’t even born when those original games (System Shock and Underworld) came out,” Spector says. "You can’t really do a direct sequel. You can tap into the essence of the game, use some elements, but knowledge of those first games isn’t necessary.”

And a direct sequel would have one other major issue, Neurath adds. “It keeps you from innovating. That holds you back. We needed to feel free to innovate where we can innovate.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/features/underworld-ascendant-plumbs-the-depths-of-immersive-sim-w515957

scharmers–funny that is almost exactly how I told my friends and family. Pretty cool on any level, not gonna lie.

A new dev diary’s out:

Otherside’s recently undergone a bit of change. Nate Welles, a Looking Glass and Irrational alumni who was the art director on Underworld, recently left the studio to join Arkane’s Austin studio, presumably to work on their online project. Ryan Lesser, previously the art director at Harmonix and the guy behind the Shodan key art for System Shock 2, has taken over the remaining art duties for the project.

I really like this design on Underworld’s Steam page:

Woah, you can wall-run? Awesome.

yes our ‘fighter’ tree is more like…wushu than classic fighter. Wall run, wall jumps slides, plus pretty much all the weapon moves of say, Dark Messiah.

That sounds great. I know you probably can’t tell us too much, but can you at least spill the beans on how many different trees like the fighter one the game has? Or how many can be expected to max out in a single playthrough?

In any case, I’m unreasonably hyped for this.

On a side note, the video seemed a little choppy, is that a video rendering issue? I remember some older vids where you were showing the art having the same problem.

Looks great. Would like to see some of the NPC interaction next. Talking to, not killing.

i think it is just the video, i run at about 60fps on a machine from last year - sub 980 card.
number of skills overall-- around 80+
I’m actually building the UI for it right now, trying to jam all of them on one page…because im a masochist.

Don’t do that, organize them by tabs or a wheel with branches or something. We’re going through this right now with a lot of info/icons on one page and it just looks too busy. Simple initial presentation with branching info is just better design, IMO. We are doing it with tabs but I like hubs with branches in games.