One of the world’s most legendary game designers is so cool that he’s being sent into space! Richard Garriott, creator of the seminal MMORPG Ultima will be a space tourist onboard Soyuz TMA-13 launching on 12th October and heading to the International Space Station. Our Editor in Chief, Dan first brought this up a while back and I thought I’d update you on it since it’s not long now until blast off. This fact about Richard propels him, to my mind, from being a gaming legend to being one of the best humans on the planet, all round.
Garriott not only created Ultima but played its main character Lord British (his own real life nickname). Lord British was famously assassinated in-game despite being almost invincible during a Beta test of Ultima in 1997. As well as the Ultima series, Garriott worked on the Lineage games, City of Heroes/Villains and most recently Tabula Rasa.
He was always a guy who had other strings to his bow. Whilst producing Ultima VIII, Garriott was also playing the ‘corner man’ for boxer Jesús Chávez in his professional fights. He’s also a magician and the owner of a self built haunted house… and now he’s an astronaut! If only all our game designers had such a wealth of experience of life and all its facets. How this experience will affect Richard’s game design in future we don’t know but I look forward to playing the next title the space-faring designer works on.
I have to say I always thought I’d done a pretty good job of living life to the full. I have my world record certificate up on my wall, I’ve lectured at Universities, shot sniper rifles and driven tanks. This one time I grew a human! But this guy well… the man is leaving the planet! He’s not some spoffy mathematician/geologist. He isn’t a fighter pilot. He’s one of us. He’s a gamer. Not one of those guys who says “yeah, I play Madden” and then gets in their outdoor hot tub in Malibu with five playboy bunnies. I mean a proper gamer. This is the biggest gaming news there has ever been. I don’t care if there’s going to be a new Halo spin off game or how many units Spore sells. GAMER LEAVES PLANET EARTH!!! That is the goddamn news and unless you can come up with something better than that then I’m going to be slightly underwhelmed.
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If you’d like to read more about Richard’s space trip and lend him some support head over to www.richardinspace.com
God Speed, sir! Ready Up salutes you.
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