What if Electronic Arts didn't cancel Ultima Online 2? I've been wondering about that ever since I wrote a little article a few months backs called "The Greatest Games Never Published: A Visit to Video Game Development Hell," which listed what I considered to be the five most conspicuous and notorious cancellations of highly anticipated games. A few readers e-mailed me to nominate Ultima Online 2, a.k.a. Ultima Online Worlds: Origin, which was include in part 2 of the development hell series. I had never played an Ultima game, but I knew the back story regarding EA's acquisition of the developer Origin Systems and the inexplicable decision to cancel the follow-up to the highly success MMORPG Ultima Online. I started to ponder what might have happened if UO2 wasn't cancelled in 2001 and how it might have affected the Ultima franchise, the MMORPG market and the entire gaming industry as we know it. And here's what I came up with:

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Editor's note: the column you are about to read is a work of speculative fiction. It is an exploration of an alternate timeline that I made up in my head. I cannot stress this point enough: the following events never happened.

Ultima on the Edge: The Inside Story of How EA Nearly Scuttled the Biggest MMORPG in History

By Rob Wright

Richard "Lord British" Garriott had made his decision - he was leaving the Ultima franchise.

Unbeknownst to gamers and Ultima fans, Garriott has essentially disowned his signature franchise and made plans to move on from Origin. However, it was no secret that Garriott was working on a mysterious "Project X" and wanted to move away from a traditional fantasy-based MMORPG in favour of a science fiction type of environment. That game, of course, would become Tabula Rasa, which is due to arrive sometime in 2007.

Surprisingly, Garriott and Ultima Online (UO) director Starr Long, who would go on to create Destination Games together, weren't keen on the idea of doing a UO sequel. Instead, the duo felt the best choice was to add improvements and enhancements to UO instead of a direct sequel; in addition, they presented ideas for possible UO spin-offs that would incorporate a futuristic theme. From the very beginning, there was friction between the Lord British loyalists and those who sided with EA's plan to build a next-generation Ultima that would build on the amazing success of UO.

It became clear that Garriott would not play a role in UO2 and instead wanted to work on news ideas. As a result, EA set him loose, though according to many sources, the game company never had any intention of supporting his new projects. Though Origin was under the management of EA-placed chief executive Jack Heistand, Don Mattrick, then-president of EA Worldwide, was essentially the boss. Mattrick had helped create the Canadian gaming powerhouse Distinctive Software, which was acquired by EA in 1991. Since that time, Mattrick had risen through the ranks at EA and by 1999 was responsible for turning Distinctive into EA Canada in Burnaby, British Columbia, a major operation that created top games like the FIFA Soccer and NBA Live franchises. At this point, it was clear that Mattrick would one day ascend to the CEO role at EA.

Mattrick had taken a strong interest in the Ultima franchise following UO's debut in 1997, and with good reason. The game is almost universally credited with popularizing the MMORPG genre, as UO quickly became a hit and nabbed thousands of subscribers. Two years after UO launched, EverQuest and Asheron's Call arrived on the MMORPG scene. Mattrick and other minds at EA and Origin recognized that although UO had a head start on its top two competitors, the game's growth would slow and its subscriber base would eventually decline if it did not keep up with the advancements of the genre. While Asheron's Call never materialized into a real threat for UO, EverQuest quickly surpassed its subscriber base of 150,000 by February 2000. As a result, a sense of urgency, if not outright panic settled over Origin and EA. A drastic step needed to be made, and fast.