A site called TOR published a new retrospective for Ultima IV this week. The article talks about how the lack of a main villain chnged, and made the game better that it was.
More information.Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (QOTA) is an open world RPG in which the main goal is to be a good person. There’s no archvillain to defeat (Mondain, Minax, and Exodus have already been vanquished), no world that needs saving, not even a prince or princess to rescue. This was unlike any of the RPGs of the time, a narrative device that even now seems revolutionary. I can’t imagine a book, film, or TV series without a principal foe—what would the story arc even be like? In QOTA, you help people, meditate, explore Britannia, and focus on self-enlightenment.