Richard Garriott to Soon Take Back Rights to the Ultima Series From EA

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Written by Erren Van Duine

Published: October 8, 2026 5:50 PM

Gamers of old will remember the early days of Ultima - a hugely classic and important RPG that designer Richard Garriott sold to Electronic Arts way back in 1992. That sale, along with his studio Origin Systems, went for a hefty (at the time) $30 million.

Despite Ultima's popularity as a series in the 1990s, EA eventually decided to shutter Origin's projects by 2000 and Richard Garriott left the company. Fast-forward to today and it looks like he might be back in under a different capacity.

Courtesy of Section 203 of the United States Copyright Act, Garriott will have the right to terminate the previous copyright transfer after 35 years, which is something he confirmed in a video interview with Jesse Petrilla. It's notable that while he would have the copyright returned, he would not have the trademark.

“There’s no money that needs to transfer," said Garriott. "All you have to do is tell them a year before you take it back. And so in April of this year, I told Electronic Arts, ‘By the way, I’m going to take the copyrights to Ultima back.'"

That said, Garriott did also confirm he's in active discussions with EA to explore any potential future for the Ultima series. Once he gets it back in 2027, at the very least he acknowledges he can re-release the earlier games, and potentially create sequels.

During a recent panel at Dragoncon, Garriott did share some of his vision, including a heavy lean on AI tools and supposedly "ethically trained LLMs" among other ChatGPT-created concepts. It remains to be seen if he ends up going all in on that front, or otherwise.

EA has largely let Ultima sit on ice, with the most recent title out 13 years ago with Ultima Forever.

Erren Van Duine | Staff Writer Erren is a staff writer for TechRaptor whose writing experience stems from years of helming Nova Crystallis – a website dedicated to everything Square Enix… More about Erren