Majuular's 4.5-hour Ultima Online documentary is out now

YouTube essayist Majuular has released a 4.5-hour documentary on Ultima Online, the latest installment in his multi-year video series about Richard Garriott's genre-defining RPG franchise. The video took six months to produce.

The documentary traces Ultima Online from its creation under Richard Garriott and Starr Long, through its development by Raph Koster and his team of Multi-User Dungeon enthusiasts, to its evolution as it faced competition and its lasting influence on gaming. "This one was a doozy," Majuular wrote in the video's comments.

Majuular highlighted the fan-run server In Mani Ylem as a way to experience the late 1990s version of the game. Ultima Online remains playable on both official servers and community-run alternatives.

The documentary is part of Majuular's broader Ultima Retrospective, a series that spans more than 20 hours of content. His videos trace the franchise's influence on western and Japanese RPGs, cover the human stories behind its creation, and involve playing the games while analyzing their lore. Majuular has more than 200,000 YouTube followers.