What Is The Exodus Project Website?

Updated

The Exodus Project (exodus.voyd.net) is a fan-made project that provides upgrades for early Ultima games, with its documented work centering on Ultima 2 and Ultima 3. It is aimed at players who want improved visuals and gameplay in those older titles, and it distributes its releases through a download section alongside development blog posts. The site is a resource for people who already play or want to revisit early Ultima games and are looking for community-made enhancements.

What the project actually offers

The site's own posts describe specific upgrade features rather than a single unified patch. Documented examples include:

  • Ultima 2 Upgrade v2.1 — a release announced on the site, with new features described across accompanying blog posts.
  • CGA Composite Mode — a visual upgrade that changes how the original CGA graphics render. The project author explains that the alternating magenta-and-black water pixels appear as a smooth deep blue in composite mode, and reversing the pixel order produces the red used on town and castle brick tiles. This feature was originally planned for the next release and was carried over using an algorithm adapted from the Ultima 3 Upgrade.
  • Stat Choice — a gameplay change letting the player choose which stat to upgrade. The site notes this is toggle-able via config, since it alters gameplay rather than audio or visuals.
  • C64 Theme — a Commodore 64 visual theme, described as an unplanned feature built partly as a proof of concept for themes.
  • Prices & Maxed Stats Bug — a post discussing a bug in Ultima 2 involving vendor prices as a player approaches maxed stats, where Charisma and Intelligence affect shop prices.

Who it is for

The project suits players who:

  • Own or emulate early Ultima games and want to improve how they look or play.
  • Are comfortable applying fan-made upgrades and adjusting configuration options (the stat-choice feature, for example, is toggled through config).
  • Are interested in the development history and reasoning behind each change, which the blog posts cover in detail.

It is less relevant if you are looking for a general Ultima fan portal, a modern remake, or official support — the site's scope is upgrades for the early games.

How to use the site

  1. Go to the download section to find the current upgrade releases (the site references Ultima 2 Upgrade v2.1 as a release available there).
  2. Read the related blog posts for the features you care about, since each post explains what a feature changes and, in the case of Stat Choice, that it can be toggled via config.
  3. Check the bug-related posts (such as the vendor prices and maxed stats discussion) if you encounter odd behavior in the original game.

The site does not present itself as a store; its content is organized around downloads and development notes. Pricing or access conditions beyond that are not stated in the available material, so treat availability as something to confirm on the download page itself.

A practical example

Suppose you are replaying Ultima 2 and find the original CGA water tiles hard to look at. The project's CGA Composite Mode post explains exactly why: those tiles were designed for composite display, where alternating magenta-and-black pixels blend into blue. Knowing this, you can decide whether the composite-mode upgrade addresses your complaint before downloading anything — which is the kind of decision the blog posts are written to support.