Ultima marked a turning point in video game development as a whole, allowing players to explore virtual worlds like never before. Since then, gaming has come so far that there are countless different fantastical worlds that players can adventure through, but that isn't enough for the series' creator, Richard Garriott. Although he is heralded as a legend in the gaming community, his accolades don't stop there, and he just recently acquired another. As of his most recent journey, Garriott is now the first human to have visited both the North and South Poles, the Marianas Trench, and outer space.
This impressive achievement is decades in the making, dating all the way back to his first endeavor of the four locations, getting to the South Pole. While fans of both the Ultima franchise and the Explorer's Club, of which Garriott is the President-Elect, are celebrating his accomplishment, many look forward and wonder what insane location he'll visit next.
This journey began in 1998, when Garriott trekked to the South Pole. In 2008, he became one of the first ever private astronauts, paying a hefty $30 million to visit the International Space Station as a civilian. Another ten years later, Garriott went to the opposite side of the earth to the North pole in 2018, but didn't wait as long for his next adventure. February 2021 saw the intrepid explorer reach the bottom of the Marianas Trench, the lowest point on Earth. This four-hour trip took him seven miles below sea level, and on the way he saw some amazing things and made yet more records for himself.
Aside from being the first human to make it to these four extreme locations in one lifetime, he also now holds the altitude and depth records for Geocaching and Film-making. During his trip, Garriott planted a geocache at the bottom of the ocean, and he filmed a short sci-fi film. Along with performing other scientific tests and experiments, the trip was clearly beneficial in multiple fields of study. Having traveled to the northernmost point of the world, the southernmost point of the world, the lowest possible depth, and breaching the highest possible altitude, it's safe to say that Garriott is well-traveled.
Ironically, many of these accomplishments are also things that players could do within Ultima itself. Whether that's reaching unknown depths by travelling through whirlpools in the ocean, battling enemy starfighters in space, or exploring its vast open world, it's clear that these things were of interest to Garriott even when they might have seemed impossible back in 1981.
Source:Â The Explorer's Club