#IAmTheAvatar: Are Underworld Ascendant and Shroud of the Avatar Set in the Same Universe?
BY
WTF DRAGON · JANUARY 21, 2015
As noted earlier, OtherSide Entertainment have been using the
#IAmTheAvatar hashtag on Twitter to promote
Underworld Ascendant. Evidently, this caused some curiosity and speculation, because they then felt the need to
sort-of clarify the term’s meaning on their forums:
What does that mean?
As the Avatar in Underworld, your mission is to do great things and undertake herculean tasks for the greater good. But it isn’t always huge heroic leaps is it? It’s also the little things. Like fostering relationships, gathering and trading goods, crafting necessary items. You get the idea. So all deeds which lead to the end result, great or small, make up the Avatar.
Our mission as the Underworld community is to do the same. We’re on a quest to raise the Underworld. This will happen in both grand gestures like high profile news or through smaller steps, like a retweet or telling a friend about how Ultima Underworld affected your gaming experiences. However you chose to contribute to the quest, you are the Avatar.
We are honored that you are on this journey with us.
Which…probably triggers as many questions as it answers, really. We’ll likely learn more on February 4th, which is when their Kickstarter campaign begins. They even released
a promotional banner to drive home the date:
Anyhow…I don’t think it’s entirely a coincidence that you, the player, will take on the persona ofthe Avatar (or an Avatar) in both
Underworld Ascension and
Shroud of the Avatar. But here’s where it gets interesting, as I hope you’ll see momentarily. Someone asked Richard Garriott, via Twitter, about
Underworld Ascendant:
Huzzah!
@OtherSide_Games brings back
#Ultima Underworld! How close to
@RichardGarriott 's lore will it be?
The Codex’s own Browncoat Jayson jumped in with a quick reply to this, explaining what OtherSide can and cannot do with the game at the IP level:
But then Richard Garriott added this little tidbit of information:
@browncoatjayson @PlayingTurtle @OtherSide_Games We are still working together on joint fiction, so we continue history together!
Joint fiction? Continue history together? It’s not an outright admission, to be sure, but it does seem to strongly imply that the two games may end up being set in the same universe, upon the same world, telling two different parts of a common, larger story.
I should probably also note that
the $1.8 million stretch goal during Shroud of the Avatar’sKickstarter campaign had four parts to it:
- A serialized novel by Tracy Hickman as a prequel to the SotA storyline
- A massive, interconnected underworld with a unique story and ecology
- An apprentice system that would allow “Master”-level players to help lower-level players advance more quickly
- Cloaks with full cloth simulation
To date, two of these four goals have been delivered:
Blade of the Avatar was indeed written and released, and
Shroud of the Avatar does indeed feature cloaks with full cloth physics to them. Notably absent? Well, yes, the apprentice system…but also the underworld. There has been nary a mention of it in any Update of the Avatar published to date, nor even a hint of concept art pertaining thereto.
So I, for one, can’t help but wonder: what if
Shroud of the Avatar’s underworld experience will be delivered by
Underworld Ascendant?
regardless, unless something disastrous happens.
