What's Missing from GOG?

For over a decade now, GOG has been the online home of classic Origin games. It has introduced countless new fans to series like Wing Commander, Ultima and Crusader. But... what's missing? Origin published dozens of games in its two decades of development and there are plenty of gems that simply aren't available today. So we've conducted a quick audit in the hopes of bringing some recognition to the titles that still can't be legally played today. We've attempted to Origin's output into three categories: the 1980s, 1990s and then an appendix of related titles that weren't developed by or published under the Origin label. The lists do not include re-releases or mission disks, assuming that any GOG release would be the most complete version of that particular title.

Publisher Era (1983-1990)

From 1983 to 1990, Origin was a workshop-style studio which partnered with independent creators to develop and published their games in exchange for a stake in their release. In that time they released 20 games ranging from Ultima III and Caverns of Callisto in 1983 to Bad Blood in 1990. Eight of these games have been published digitally on GOG, primarily from the Ultima series. Of the remaining games, two do not have MS-DOS ports (Caverns of Callisto and Ring Quest). The other 10 games would be easy to release from a technical standpoint but depending on the individual deals they may not be owned outright by Electronic Arts (this is the case with Space Rogue, which has been published on GOG independently). Two of them, AutoDuel and Omega, are adapted from pen and paper games developed by Steve Jackson Games which may make a digital rerelease more difficult. Two of these games, Moebius and Windwalker, represent a series. Ring Quest is a text based adventure game by Dallas Snell which was the sequel to a game called The Quest which was never republished by Origin. Knights of Legend is a standalone game which has notable connections to the Ultima games. 2400 A.D., Times of Lore, Omega, Tangled Tales and Bad Blood are standalone IPs; Times of Lore and Bad Blood might be particularly interesting because of their place in Chris Roberts' storied career.

• Caverns of Callisto (1983)
• Moebius: The Orb of Celestial Harmony (1985)
• Ring Quest (1986)
• AutoDuel (1986)
• Ogre (1986)
• 2400 A.D. (1988)
• Times of Lore (1988)
• Knights of Legend (1989)
• Omega (1989)
• Tangled Tales: The Misadventures of a Wizard's Apprentice (1989)
• Windwalker (1989)
• Bad Blood (1990)

Studio Era (1990-2004)

The second half of the Origin story is as a more familiar development studio that owned its own IPs (and later was owned and financed by published Electronic Arts). Wing Commander and Ultima VI were the titles that changed their police and everything after 1991 was published by EA rather than Origin directly. During this time, Origin released 40 games. 25 of these games are available through GOG. Of the remaining 15 titles, 5 do not have MS-DOS or Windows 9x ports (Ultima: Runes of Virtue, Origin FX, Ultima: Runes of Virtue II, Metal Morph and Super Wing Commander), one is an MMO (Ultima Online) and one was released free online (Transland). The final eight games include three in the Jane's series of military simulations, two titles developed by other studios (Shadowcaster and Abuse) and three truly essential in-house games whose lack of releease is baffling: Pacific Strike, CyberMage and Wings of Glory. Any of these would be easy wins for GOG and EA!

• Ultima: Runes of Virtue (1991)
• Origin FX (1992)
• Shadowcaster (1993)
• Ultima: Runes of Virtue II (1993)
• Pacific Strike (1994)
• Metal Morph (1994)
• Super Wing Commander (1994)
• CyberMage: Darklight Awakening (1995)
• Wings of Glory (1995)
• Abuse (1996)
• Jane's AH-64D Longbow (1996)
• Transland (1996)
• Ultima Online (1997)
• Jane's Combat Simulations: Longbow 2 (1997)
• Jane's F-15 (1998)

We've also collected a list of 'related' games like Wing Commander Arena and Lord of Ultima which you can find in this spreadsheet. These games are either connected narratively to Origin games (like Wing Commander Arena) or they are releases where Origin had something to do with the development (like the Jane's and Zero Pilot serieses). Of these 23 games, one is available on GOG (System Shock 2), though two of the non-Origin Jane's games are available via Steam.