Braving Britannia: Tales of Melancholy, Malice, and Peril in Ultima Online

by Wes Locher

YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN … OR CAN YOU? For more than 20 years, millions of players have lived, loved, and lost in the medieval fantasy world of Britannia within the video game Ultima Online. Originally released in 1997 by developer Origin Systems and publisher Electronic Arts, Ultima Online is widely considered to be the grandfather of Massively Multiplayer Online games. This second volume of the Braving Britannia series collects interviews with 30 more of the game’s players as they share treasured memories of slaughtering the weak, protecting the innocent, founding successful roleplaying communities, meeting future spouses, bonding with family and friends, decorating expansive castles, or just causing trouble for everyone around them. Meanwhile, the author returns to Ultima Online for the first time in more than 15 years, hoping to discover whether the game is as special as he remembers it, or if his feelings are merely rooted in nostalgia. It’s time to brave Britannia. Again.

Genres: Video Games

247 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 15, 2020

About the author

Wes Locher has written video games for developers such as FableLabs (Serious Weirdness, 2018), Based on the Play (Re*Sequenced, 2018), Nanobit Software (Lost in Fame, 2017), Pulsetense Games (Post-War Dreams, 2017), and Pocket Gems Games (Future: Uncertain, 2015). His comic books have been published in the USA, UK, and Canada by Alterna Comics (Unit 44, 2017), Titan Comics (Adrift, 2015), Markosia Enterprises (The Undoubtables, 2014), Arcana Studios (Chambers, 2013), and many others. He's the author of the nonfiction book Braving Britannia: Tales of the Life, Love, and Adventure in Ultima Online , and a collection of humorous essays called Musings on Minutiae, published in 2010.

Wes’s father was a journalist. His mother was an English teacher. Wes is genetically doomed to write for all eternity.

Visit him online at www.weslocher.com.

Reviews

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

A continuation of the stories and extended anecdotes that began with the first volume, this book is a very good read for any fans of Ultima, MMORPGs, or retro gaming in general. Locher has a warm and chatty style to his narration, and in this volume he intersperses the contributor stories with his own tale of revisiting Ultima Online after more than 14 years away from the game. It's a fun and nostalgic book, but might not hold the interest of people who are not already interested in the subject matter. I for one, loved it.