It must be confessions week here at Giant Bomb for me, as I'm forced to admit I've never played an Ultima game before. I have my reasons, chiefly that I didn't own a PC until 1994, when DOOM II came out.
Before that game, almost all of my gaming was done on the NES and SNES. Ultima had largely come and gone at that point, with Ultima VIII: Pagan arriving the same year.
Maybe it's time to time travel, as Good Old Games revealed today Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar is now available for...free. Slowly, Electronic Arts seems to be stoking the flames of Ultima nostalgia, which would suggest the publisher is leading towards some sort of announcement eventually.
Ultima IV was actually released in 1985--the same year I was born!
Looking over the profile page for Ultima IV can cue a bought of depression, though, since the developer was Origin Systems. We all know what EA has since done with that name. Sigh, sigh, sigh.
Still, credit where credit is due. Ultima IV is online, ready to download, and you don't have to pay a thing.