Wild Basin Expedition Images

Courtesy of Joe Garrity and the Origin Museum, The Origin Gallery is pleased to present these eight (8) photographs of the “Wild Basin Expedition” Team (a.k.a. the development and production staff of Savage Empire). Some of these pictures — one, in fact — were used in the Ultimate Adventures book — a piece of bonus content, a ‘book of lore’ — that came with Savage Empire.

The picture in question appears toward the end of the book, as a low-resolution black and white image. It can also be seen here (I think it’s the third image) in high-resolution and in colour. The story in the book — which treats Savage Empire as a movie production — is of course all entirely fictional, and the characters are all members of the production and development team.

Interestingly, the shoot itself did not happen outdoors, nor even in a park or related public facility. All photos were shot in Origin’s own offices, in a humongous indoor garden. (And it just so happens that Origin’s headquarters was located on Wild Basin Road…)

Now, a few disclaimers.

These images are the JPEG scans of original 35mm slides, and are quite large as a result (in terms of both resolution and file size). They may take a while to load when clicked on. Once you click on them, they will appear in a lightbox formatted to fit your monitor resolution; right-clicking on the lightbox and selecting “View Image” (a feature not available in all browsers) will take you to the full-resolution image.

Additionally, unlike other materials contributed by the Origin Museum, these pictures were donated to the Museum directly by Origin when they closed back in 2004. They are not from the EA archive project carried out at Mythic Entertainment.

Finally, enjoy. Pull up the images. Pore over them. They are kind of a “who’s who” of famous Origin Systems faces, after all…and it’s kind of fun to see them all hamming it up as “jungle explorers.” The Origin Gallery is indebted to Joe Garrity and Origin Systems for this fascinating glimpse into a tiny slice of the history of the people behind the Ultima franchise.