Ultima VII: The Black Gate

The Black Gate was critically acclaimed and commercially successful, being widely lauded as a high point in the series and as one of the best RPGs ever created. 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 , 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 is in contrast to earlier parts that were entirely keyboard-driven, and to Ultima VI which supplemented 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 in their desired locations. 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. Even when the combat is real-time and AI-controlled, using items is still possible; for example, the game pauses while the player prepares to use an item from their backpack. Ultima VII: The Black Gate is the first game in the mainline Ultima series to use dialogue trees.