Richard Garriott is Reclaiming Ultima from EA

Grab your Ankhs and polish up your spellbooks, classic PC RPG fans—a legendary piece of gaming history is about to change hands.

Richard Garriott—better known to the gaming world by his royal alter ego, Lord British—has officially announced that he is taking the iconic Ultima franchise back from Electronic Arts. And the best part? He’s doing it using a fascinating legal loophole that costs nothing and requires zero corporate buyouts.

The 35-Year Magic Trick

How do you wrench a monumental intellectual property away from a multi-billion-dollar publisher like EA without a massive legal battle or a mountain of cash? According to Garriott, you just lean on a “really weird” piece of United States copyright law.

Specifically, Garriott is leveraging Section 203 of the U.S. Copyright Act. This provision allows creators to terminate copyright grants and reclaim ownership of works they signed away decades ago, once a specific time window has passed (in this case, 35 years).

The process is remarkably straightforward:

“There’s no money that needs to transfer,” Garriott explained in an interview. “All you have to do is tell them a year before you take it back. And so in April of this year [2026], I told Electronic Arts, ‘By the way, I’m going to take the copyrights to Ultima back.’ And they wrote back and said, ‘Yeah, we know that’s the law. We will act accordingly.'”

With EA acknowledging the maneuver, the wheels are officially in motion for a 2027 handover.

What Does This Mean for Ultima?

For decades, the seminal computer RPG series that practically defined the genre—pioneering open worlds, moral virtue systems, and immersive environmental interaction—has largely sat in corporate hibernation under EA. Apart from digital storefront re-releases, the franchise has been quiet.

Now, Garriott is back in the driver’s seat of his original masterpiece line. While he has a full year to map out his next moves, he’s already teased two major possibilities:

1. Official Re-releases: Bringing the classic Ultima titles back into the spotlight for modern players.

2. Brand New Sequels: Actually continuing the timeline of a franchise many thought was dead and buried.

A Small Catch in the Labyrinth

Of course, no dungeon crawl is entirely without traps. While Garriott is reclaiming the copyrights to the creative works, the situation with trademarks is a bit more tangled. Reports note that EA filed fresh trademarks for Ultima, meaning Garriott might face hurdles if he tries to stamp the exact word “Ultima” on a brand-new box.

As a clever workaround, industry watchers speculate he could pivot to titles utilizing his famous moniker—such as Lord British’s Ultima—tapping straight into the nostalgia of Ultima Online.

Whether this leads to a triumphant grand renaissance for the granddaddy of CRPGs or a fascinating nostalgic victory lap, one thing is certain: Lord British is returning to Britannia, and the gaming landscape is about to get a whole lot more interesting.