IP owner Electronic Arts has released the game as freeware in 2011 to promote its free-to-play remake Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar, which it would release in 2013. Reception Ultima IV was the top game on Billboards list of software best sellers for February and March 1986. In the United States, Ultima IV had sold more than 100,000 copies by August 1986. Global sales of Ultima IV had surpassed 400,000 copies by May 1989. Scorpia of Computer Gaming World in 1986 called it "an incredible game", only criticizing the fact that experience only came from combat, which she stated became "tedious". Scorpia concluded, "What are you waiting for? This will be a classic... go get it!!" The game became the first to replace Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord—the top-rated adventure game for five years—in the magazine's reader poll, and it named Ultima IV as the game of the year for 1986. In 1987 Scorpia cited Ultima IV for taking the genre away from hack and slash—"for the first time, we have a CRPG whose focus IS character development. Not how many monsters you kill, nor how much loot you can pick up"—in 1991 and 1993 called it her favorite game, in 1994 stated that "maybe nothing ever will" surpass it, and after retiring from reviewing games called it "my all-time, number one, favorite RPG". In June 1986, Dragons Hartley and Pattie Lesser called Ultima IV "The most impressive and complex adventure to date; a total adventuring environment that takes place across an entire continent." In the September 1986 issue, Mike Gray lauded the game as "the best computer simulation of a true fantasy role-playing experience I have ever seen. If you have an Apple II or a Commodore 64 or 128, your treasure hoard of computer FRP games will not be complete unless and until you get your hands on this one". He praised Ultima IV as "incredible. If you can find it in a store, don’t pass it up... Don’t be discouraged if it takes you a while to find a copy — that search will be an easy one compared to what awaits you when you start the Quest of the Avatar". Famitsu reviewed the Famicom (NES) version and scored it 31 out of 40. Computer and Video Games magazine reviewed the Sega Master System version in 1990, giving it an 89% score. Co-creator of