# Richard Garriott says Ultima copyrights will return to him in 2027
Ultima creator Richard Garriott says he is set to regain copyrights in the influential role-playing game series from Electronic Arts in 2027, using a provision of US law that lets authors terminate certain transfers after 35 years. Garriott said he notified EA in April and that the publisher acknowledged the process.
The return would reverse part of a deal dating to 1992, when Garriott sold Origin Systems and the Ultima series to EA for $30 million. Electronic Arts published additional Ultima games during the 1990s, including the online multiplayer title Ultima Online, but canceled Origin projects in 2000. Garriott left the company that year. The last numbered mainline release was Ultima IX in 1999.
Garriott is relying on Section 203 of the US Copyright Act, which under specified conditions gives authors a window to terminate earlier copyright grants. He said the relevant 35-year period for Ultima is approaching and that he provided the required advance notice. The legal mechanism does not necessarily settle every trademark, contractual or derivative-rights question, so the practical scope will depend on the rights covered by the transfer and the final arrangements with EA.
The designer said discussions with the publisher are active and could still produce joint projects. He expects the copyrights to return officially in 2027 and described the change as giving him control over the future of his best-known body of work. Among the possibilities he identified were rereleases of early installments and new sequels, although no particular game, development team, schedule or publishing plan has been announced.
Ultima occupies an important place in computer role-playing history. Across its early installments, the series emphasized exploration, persistent fictional worlds and player choices in ways that helped establish conventions later adopted throughout the genre. Ultima Online also became a landmark in massively multiplayer games. That history makes control of the catalog valuable even after a long absence of new mainline releases.
EA has attempted to revive the name since the closure of Origin, including free-to-play projects. The most recent cited attempt, Ultima Forever, appeared in 2013. None restored the series to the regular release pattern it had in the 1980s and 1990s.
Garriott's post-EA career included founding Destination Games, working with NCsoft on the 2007 online game Tabula Rasa and traveling to the International Space Station as a private astronaut in 2008. His planned rights recovery now reconnects him with the property that defined his earlier career.
For players, the announcement is a rights-development story rather than confirmation of a new Ultima title. The near-term milestones are completion of the statutory process and the outcome of discussions with EA. Only after those steps will it become clear whether the returning copyrights lead to archival rereleases, an original sequel, a partnership with the current publisher or another strategy.
