xu4 “Ultima IV Recreated” in German
Produced by: TeaRex73
Website: xu4 “Ultima IV Recreated” in German @ GitHub
Releases:
Release v2.0-alpha.1 for 64-bit Windows installations.
Release v2.0-alpha.1 for 32-bit Windows installations.
Release v2.0-alpha.1 source code.
xu4 is a well-known, SDL-based, cross-platform re-creation of the Ultima 4 game engine. xu4 was incorporated into ScummVM alongside several other Ultima fan engines in 2020. However, since then, Karl Robillard has taken on the responsibility of maintaining xu4 in its standalone form. Version 1.0 of the engine – it spent 18 years in a beta state! – was released in early 2022, with version 1.1 following in July of the year, bringing with it improvements to the engine’s handling of sounds.
This project is a fork of the xu4 codebase, rather than a straight translation thereof. TeaRex73 has made a number of changes to the engine, and in particular tried to re-create the look and sound of the original Apple ][ version of Ultima 4. The builds of the project that are available today run on Windows 7 or higher, and include complete documentation.
While this project has only come to light as of 2025, it is in fact the culmination of over a decade of on-and-off work. The timing of its release was intended to celebrate Ultima 4’s 40th anniversary, Ultima 4 having been released in mid-September back in 1985.
Finire Dragon (UDIC) aka TeRex73 aka Linards Ticmanis here. This project was forked off the old svn-based xu4 source code tree in 2013, well before Karl took over xu4, so it doesn’t contain his work. I did most of my changes while xu4 was basically frozen, and I was too far gone from the original code when he took over, so it would be very hard to reintegrate his many changes into my code. My first goal was to make a version U4 for Raspberry pi that looked like the old Apple II version. The German translation was an afterthought and then the Windows version was an after-afterthought conceived in 2024. I hope you enjoy it, if there are any problems PLEASE open an issue or a discussion on the github page, I’m suffering from a sore lack of testers.
Finire Dragon (UDIC) aka TeaRex73 aka Linards Ticmanis here. Thanks for having this page. Currently I have very little time to work on it, hopefully this will change in a couple of months. Enjoy! And please if you find any problems or bugs open an issue on GitHub or a Discussion. Testing (by people other than myself) s sorely needed.
Note that this project forks from the xu4 repository as it was in 2013 (three years before where ScummVM copied the code) and so is really still in a Beta state. I would encourage anyone doing similar modifications now to make use of the xu4 module system that packages alternate graphics, sounds, and most NPC dialogue into a single data file that can be selected by the user.