Not too long ago, Richard “Lord British” Garriott asked fans to help him get his upcoming Ultima Online inspired project, Shroud of the avatar, greenlit on Steam. As you would expect of the feverishly loyal (I can’t believe so many of them still like Ultima 8 and 9) Ultima fans, it didn’t take long to make it so.

Since the game was initially funded on Kickstarter, special extras are being planned for those who want to play the game on Steam’s service:

We have yet to work out the details with Steam but our plan would be to give our backers Steam Keys to play the game on Steam if they request it so that they won’t have to repurchase the product on Steam. We have seen several other products do this so we do not anticipate this being an issue.

If SotA passes the Greenlight process and becomes available on Steam, our current thinking is to offer a version of the game priced at the low end of our current pledges, that includes:

Digital download of the game (Episode 1)
Alpha + Beta access

One very nice feature that has me looking forward to the project is that even though Shroud of the Avatar is meant to be played online, it has a full-featured offline mode as well. Definitely a game to look forward to when it releases sometime next year.