Earlier tonight, however, the Ultima franchise got a big re-launch at a media and fan event in San Francisco's Yurba Buena Center for the Arts as Origin and EA finally revealed what had been rumored for months; an all new massively multiplayer RPG titled Ultima X: Odyssey. Origin head man Andy Hollis made the official announcement to a packed house of media, fans and retailers and we got to see the first gameplay footage (as well as some pre-rendered CGI cut scenes) from the game.

The gameplay footage clearly showed that Ultima X will be powered by Epic's Unreal engine (indeed, Epic's Tim Sweeny and Mark Rein also were there at the launch event last night) with some awesome looking outdoor environments across a wide range of setting (forest, snow, and more). The character models in the game are also highly details but what was most impressive in the gameplay footage is the fact that this game will be very action oriented with player character going up against large and varied enemies, from two headed ogres to sexy looking female demo types and more.