Er is nog weinig duidelijk over een release date, dit vooral omdat het een freeware game is en men hiervoor niet betaald krijgt.
Ultima 1 is considered by some to be the RPG that started it all. In a sense it defined the RPG genre as it is today and as I mentioned earlier you still find traces of it in many modern RPGs. But because it was so original it really had no way of knowing which game aspects were good and which weren't - it didn't really have any reference games to be inspired by. As a result it became a test-bench for Richard Garriott to try out all the ideas he had - and so he did! For example he included a sci-fi part where you suddenly had to fly a spacecraft and shoot down alien fighters to win the help of a prince . That and the much too easy game play is probably where I think the original fails the most. All in all it doesn't really compare to today's RPG's, but that would be asking a lot from a game first released in 1980.
Hier valt het gehele interview te bewonderen. Blijkbaar heeft de geestelijk vader van Ultima, Richard Garriot zijn zegen gegeven voor het project, wat het toch wel een officieel Ultima tintje geeft.