The Electronic Arts studio BioWare (Mass Effect) will develop Ultima Forever, a new entry in the long-dormant Ultima role-playing game series, it said Thursday.

The "cross-platform action RPG" will be part of Electronic Arts' Play4Free system, in which all games are free to download with an option to pay later. Players are invited to sign up for beta testing, which requires an EA Origin online account.

The Ultima RPGs were landmark games during the 1980s and 1990s, innovating much of what is now considered standard in the genre around the world.

The last "main" game in the series was 1999's Ultima IX, although a number of spin-off games have followed, such as 2010's Lord of Ultima.

In 1997, the massively multiplayer Ultima Online was released, which is still up and running and continues to be updated.

Ultima Forever details are scarce at this juncture, though a few things stand out on the game's official website. The subtitle "Quest For The Avatar" and cover artwork clearly resemble those of Ultima IV, perhaps the most celebrated game in the series. The character pleading for your help is called "Lady British," a change from the usual "Lord British" (a name that remains the property of Richard Garriott, the original creator of the series).

Garriott's current company Portalarium is also developing a spiritual successor to his past work called Ultimate RPG/New Britannia. The company said this week that it had secured $7 million from investors to support this and other game projects.