Ultima VII: The Black Gate

Game system Ultima VII introduced major changes in the Ultima series. The most serious alteration is that as far as the player is concerned, the world is no longer tile and grid-based; tiles are still used internally (in a largely improved way where the tiles themselves are smaller and frequently grouped), but they no longer affect character and monster movement or the item placement the same way. The maps are also more visibly multi-layered, and objects and things can be stacked on top of each other. This can also affect movement, and be part of puzzles; some places are inaccessible unless the player stacks items to form stairs.

A striking visual change is that the gameworld now takes up the entire screen in its original DOS environment, while previous Ultimas used a substantial portion of the screen for text, dialogue, buttons, icons, and the like. The game is the first in the series that is entirely mouse -driven, with optional keyboard hotkeys for some common actions. This is in contrast to earlier entries that are entirely keyboard-driven, and to Ultima VI , which supplements keyboard commands with on-screen command icons. While in Ultima VI , the player has to specifically use a "move" command to move an item from place to place, or "drop" to drop it on the ground, in Ultima VII , items are simply dragged and dropped to their desired locations.

While the game can be played entirely with a keyboard, doing so is very difficult, and in-game characters recommend the player use a mouse. Ultima VII introduces Graphical User Menu Pop-ups ("gumps"), which are on-screen representations of containers, later employed in Ultima VIII , Ultima IX and Ultima Online . For example, clicking on a drawer or backpack will show the contents of the container on screen, allowing the items within arranged freely with the mouse. Gumps are also used for books, scrolls, the spellbook, the status display, maps, and character equipment management; double-clicking on the Avatar opens his or her inventory, after which the inventories of other party characters can be opened by double-clicking them in turn.

In Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle , the inventory view uses a paper doll concept: equipping items will change the character inventory display to show the worn or held items in place. Another major change from earlier entries is that the game is completely real-time , and only pauses when the inventory, the menu, or a dialogue is open, significantly affecting combat. The combat system is altered accordingly: every party character is controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), and the desired behavior can be chosen for each character (for example, stronger characters can be ordered to autonomously waylay the toughest opponents, while more vulnerable characters will keep their distance), and there is also the option to choose manual targeting for the Avatar. Though the combat is real-time, the player can take their time in performing certain actions – for example, the game pauses when the player prepares to use an item from their backpack.

The AI occasionally executes some self-defeating moves (such as firing a triple crossbow into a crowd of allies), but it saves the player the need to micromanage up to eight different characters in battle. The AI can decide on its own to change what weapon a party member has been equipped with if there is a different weapon in their inventory. At times, the AI will make a party member drop their weapon to the ground before retreating. Ultima VII: The Black Gate is the first game in the mainline Ultima series to use dialogue trees.

The first trilogy only allows simple interaction while the second trilogy uses a keyword-based dialogue. Ultima VII retains the old keywords themselves, but uses a dialogue tree where dialogue options are picked with a mouse rather than entered on keyboard; in previous games, whether at random or due to having external knowledge about the game, the player can enter keywords and trigger dialog and events before they are intended to be. In Ultima VII , the keywords only appear when they are actually learned beforehand in the game due to the plot – for example, "thief caught" dialogue option won't actually appear until a thief is actually caught.