Ultima IV meant an change in many ways in the world of RPGs.

In Ultima I – III the story mainly based upon the idea: there is a bad guy out there, it’s up to you to kill or bring him down.

The creator of Ultima IV (Richard Garriott) considered such a story for his next Ultima as boring. 
When the heroes of the former games reached the final enemy, they also have become an evil character, when you think of the masses of kills you had confirmed, tons of goodies you had stolen and such behaviour.

Ultima IV confronts you with the eight virtues (compassion, justice, and so on) which derive from love, truth and courage, in which it is your task to gain mastership.
 
That means for instance: Don`t kill monsters, if they are fleeing (eben if you miss the experience points).

The one, who is successful in completing each virtue, may call himself as the Avatar.

That’s the point in the game, where the second part of the game begins:
The rescue operation of the “Codes of Ultima Wisdom” out of one of the most feared dungeons in the Ultima World à The Stygian Abyss.

So much to the story.

Ultima IV came out in the 80ies. So it`s an old game. But the fascination still is unbroken. You will have to travel all the land while trying to solve the puzzles. In fact there is no “useless” place in this world.

In every city there is at least one person, who can tell you something very important for solving the game. 

Your journeys will even lead you to eight dungeons (which stand as counterpart for the virtues), in which you will travel out of the perspective of your own eyes (Greetings to Dungeon Master).

There is an fan-project (xu4), which makes the game running on modern systems in VGA (!) and with sound.

This project hasn`t stopped it`s development and includes small new features to the game (like pictures, when you have accomplished a virtue and meditate at the corresponding shrine).
You even get a modern ending sequence!

Of course there is no project without little bugs or features, which could be done better (game crashes with xu4, if a monster accidently hits another one; still you can only attack in only four directions).

But those little things remain rather unimportant, if you remember, that are still playing a game with such a deep story, which seldom a modern RPG can speak of.