'A good suggestion, infinite drive, and many Eating regimen Pepsi': How YouTube essayist Majuular's life modified course telling the story of Ultima throughout 2 years and greater than 20 hours of documentaries
The monsters in Akalabeth: World of Doom—the precursor to the Ultima sequence, typically referred to as “Ultima 0” by followers and sequence creator Richard Garriott himself—look ridiculous. The thief is only a floating cloak, the mimic is a featureless dice, and the ultimate monster (straight-up referred to as a Balrog) appears to be like a bit like Firebrand if he was crushed underneath a cartoon steamroller. To be honest, it was 1979 and Garriott was a youngster; the Apple 2 might solely draw a pittance of strains on display screen at a time, so he designed wireframe silhouettes for every enemy utilizing coordinates on graph paper.
Akalabeth’s world was a meager, primitive trick of the sunshine. However within the days of text-based multi-user dungeons and Zork it was a crumb of revelatory proof that the emergent worlds gamers imagined in freeform periods of Dungeons & Dragons—which was solely 5 years previous at this level—could possibly be forged in a digital mould, simulated with math, and explored via the phosphor glow of a CRT monitor.
YouTube documentarian Majuular, or Luke, was not at floor zero for this CRPG revolution. He grew up with the RPGs that reside in Ultima’s lengthy shadow and had been making movies sifting via their complexities since age 14, knowledgeable by the zany YouTube stylings of the Indignant Video Recreation Nerd and Traditional Recreation Room. However whereas he was researching the origins of his most beloved sport style and studying the 450-page tome Dungeons and Desktops: The Historical past of Laptop Position-Enjoying Video games, he was singularly struck by Akalabeth’s futurism.
11 movies deep, the Majuular Ultima Retrospective embodies the fastidious, affectionate critique that’s gaming YouTube at its greatest
“One thing broke via in my head and I noticed how unbelievable it was that anyone thought this up, made it, and put it out, and never solely Akalabeth,” he recalled, measuring out every phrase with the passion and readability of a recurring storyteller. “It was like the basis of a tree that grew out and have become this extremely nuanced world of RPGs that I already had grown up with. I had all the time taken that seedling with no consideration.”
Galvanized by Barton’s guide, Luke was impressed not solely to play via the sequence which he had solely dabbled in beforehand for himself, however to make use of his latest, comparatively younger YouTube channel to relay the wild story of its creation in his personal approach. Charting the sparse corridors of the World of Doom to the limitless eccentricities of creator Garriott (represented in every sport because the preposterously named Lord British, ruler of Britannia) has been a two 12 months endeavor, however greater than 500,000 individuals are exhibiting up for every new video.
Britannia makes the waves
Eleven movies deep as of late 2025, the Majuular Ultima Retrospective embodies the fastidious, affectionate critique that’s gaming YouTube at its greatest. Many are multi-hour options that hint Ultima’s burgeoning affect on each western and Japanese roleplaying video games, focus on the human tales and context round its creation, and truly contain the soiled work of taking part in the video games whereas analyzing Ultima’s lore by itself phrases.
Whilst you may affiliate gaming-centric video essays with long-winded synopses or provocative scorching takes, Luke’s Ultima sequence is the fruit of exhaustive analysis compiled from many years of interview materials, elusive images, and particulars cataloged by communities just like the Ultima Dragons digital fan membership (with out whom Luke says he’d be “completely misplaced”).
That analysis may appear tiring given the tempo at which Luke has pumped out these movies whereas additionally making detours to the likes of William Shatner’s TekWar—he is coated 1979’s Akalabeth via 1993’s Ultima 7 Half Two in simply two years—however immersing himself in every sport’s historical past is exactly what retains him going.
A single query stays his inventive north star: “What would it not have been wish to dream this up on the time?”
“There’s one thing actually intriguing about understanding there’s only a group of younger guys with little or no expertise in the actual world who’re truly capable of create one thing that could be a actual contender, one thing that may threaten these enormous videogame corporations which have infinitely extra workers and assets. It seems that simply a good suggestion and infinite drive and many Eating regimen Pepsi is fairly good gas for redefining whole genres and even creating them, within the case of CRPGs or id with the FPS,” he mentioned.
“You nearly want you had been there. You would like you possibly can hang around with these guys and spend the afternoon consuming leftover pizza in [early id Software’s] lake home … there’s one thing romantic about that form of scrappy, beginner, just-doing-it-for-the-love-of-it and hoping one thing comes out of it, then not solely does one thing come out of it, however one thing that’s nonetheless very clearly prevalent to at the present time. You can’t ignore the affect of those individuals and the issues that they’ve created.”
Exodus
Luke has over 200,000 subscribers on YouTube and a wholesome following on Patreon today, however he is been making movies for so long as he is had the means. His earliest works had been “indignant evaluations,” ripoffs of AVGN. He didn’t pull in lots of viewers then, however his was a wildfire enthusiasm for video games: crude, self-sustaining, and uncontainable.
“It seems that taking anyone’s shtick and doing the identical factor however worse normally would not bear fruit on YouTube,” he says, however these makes an attempt taught him how you can write a script and minimize collectively gameplay clips.
Earlier than Majuular, Luke labored for the higher a part of a decade as a pizza supply driver, a retail employee, and finally in handbook labor to make hire as he moved along with his girlfriend “from basement to basement” as a university dropout. He observed YouTube video essays grow to be an enormous a part of the net dialog as channels like Joseph Anderson, MandaloreGaming, and Matthewmatosis rose to prominence, nevertheless it all appeared like watching the again of a prepare he’d missed slowly grow to be a pinhole on the horizon.
“What a terrific concept, to speak about videogames on this approach,” he remembered pondering. “Nicely, it is too late. Someone else has already cracked the code; again to the lumber yard with me.”
It was in a uncommon clump of obligation-free months between a second school exit and a deliberate return to hauling building materials that he determined “to go all-in” on just a few highfalutin desires. A type of desires was nonetheless YouTube, and so he pumped out prolonged retrospectives on the likes of Chrono Cross, The Legend of Dragoon, and finally, Ultima, on a brand new channel he named after a Devin Townsend tune. Little by little Patreon members trickled in.
Now with 2,700 individuals paying to see extra, Luke and his girlfriend have saved up sufficient cash to afford “a house, and daylight for our cats.” It is the primary time they’ve had a kitchen and home windows in years.
“It’s very modified my life,” he mentioned. “It is given us a level of safety and it is simply cool to have a gaggle of people who find themselves interested by what it’s important to say and it is one thing I do not assume I will ever get used to. Seeing individuals say ‘I am so excited for this video’ … it is nearly overwhelming.”
His work ethic has hardly modified since his days on the lumber yard. “Very a lot a creature of behavior,” Luke says—he places in his hours like clockwork every day, whether or not they’re spent researching, taking part in and note-taking, or trawling obscure archives for an era-appropriate image of Warren Spector. It is pure to spend a dozen hours or extra a day engaged on the subsequent video, break up between script writing (which he “hardly ever” appears to be like ahead to, dreading the piercing gaze of a clean Phrase doc) and the “extra workmanlike,” if tedious, modifying course of.
Ultima Without end
Garriott’s CRPG sequence might not declare the title of “first laptop roleplaying sport,” however its greatest entries are among the most influential within the medium’s historical past. Baldur’s Gate 3 creator Swen Vincke and Majuular agree that the one to attempt in the present day is Ultima 7—its emphasis on participant company and interactivity was a marvel when it initially launched.
The routine is fueled by the sense that he owes no matter he can spare to his viewers, and a way behind his thoughts that YouTube, what with its fickle algorithm, is precarious. He made it this far by exhibiting up, so he is mimicking a twentieth century videogame designer to barrel ahead with as a lot drive and Eating regimen Pepsi because it takes.
You may see the consequences within the ensuing work—his Ultima sequence alone has solely grown extra detailed and elaborate with every new video.
Take The Tyranny of Advantage, Luke’s retrospective on Ultima 5. By this level, the video games have grown right into a sprawling story about good and evil, acknowledging the participant character immediately because the Avatar; Ultima 4 had a remarkably sturdy morality system that rewarded virtuous in-character habits, and Ultima 5 flips that on its head, utilizing the earlier sport’s virtues as the premise for a tyrannical villain’s absolutist dogma.
It might have been straightforward to write down these narratives off as cool for the time however pedestrian now, however Luke was as much as the duty of combing via the thematic implications completely: he honors the sport as a piece of fantasy fiction in its personal proper, evaluating its findings in regards to the which means of advantage to inspirations like Lord of the Rings and praising its willingness to interrogate its personal messaging and encourage gamers to do the identical.
Luke concedes that the narrative itself is a bit pedestrian in a post-Baldur’s Gate 3 world, however the way in which the story leveraged the medium was wildly forward-thinking for its time. These moments the place the participant’s actions are introduced into the story and roleplay is rewarded are, to Luke, a few of “essentially the most intelligent implementations in an RPG that I’ve ever seen to at the present time.”
“The thought on the time of, like, ‘you beat the sport by performing virtuously,’ would have been so summary and such a tough promote for lots of people,” he mentioned. “The narrative actually reaches past the pc display screen and turns into meta in a approach that I might describe, as a lot because the phrase will get thrown round very flippantly today, as genius.”
His life in some way now revolves round speaking about video games on this approach.
“Even on these 14-hour modifying days, I am glad that, at the least for now, I haven’t got to get out into the automotive at -40 levels Celsius to go raise drywall all day. That is a fairly optimistic change I might say,” he laughed. “I do know it will not final perpetually, so I am all the time attempting to make hay whereas the solar shines, and an enormous a part of that’s attempting to enhance my craft.”
By the ages
Akalabeth’s wireframe Balrogs could seem primitive, nevertheless it’s an important piece of historical past for the nascent CRPG.
Ultima 5’s metafiction streak was remarkably forward-thinking for a sport narrative on the time, and as Majuular put it, stays “genius.”
Underworld’s dazzling first-person perspective makes up essential DNA in sequence like The Elder Scrolls and System Shock.
Some of the celebrated RPGs of all time, Majuular says Ultima 7 is on the “good crossroads” of accessibility, high quality, significance, and coziness.
Onto new worlds of journey
The Ultima retrospective is nearing its finish. Luke plans to get via the primary sequence ending with Ultima 9 and, past that, at the least cowl Ultima On-line, which even taken alone was massively influential on the planet of MMORPGs. After that, there are just a few “lesser video games” to chew via: assorted money grabs, telephone video games, and a glitchy mess PC Gamer’s Rick Lane gave a 25. However whereas Luke’s channel has all the time coated a wide range of roleplaying video games and accounted for a contingent of his viewers with little interest in the video games, ending a retrospective odyssey longer than a Ken Burns documentary will show bittersweet.
“Ultima will not be for everyone, nevertheless it’s for me, as a result of once I pull the brakes on it and once I give myself an opportunity to form of recalibrate, by the point I am diving into the subsequent sport, I am unable to wait to get again to the analysis part and see how issues are altering in Britannia,” he mentioned.
“I’ve thought of Ultima just about every single day for the final—I do not even bear in mind once I began this sequence—two-and-a-half years in the past at this level? It has been an enormous a part of my life, so I am most likely all the time going to deliver it up. It is all the time going to be a part of the id of the channel, it is all the time going to be one thing that pursuits me, even simply speaking about it. What it did: the way it modified the world of RPGs.”