Simultaneously, the columns were drawing the moons toward Britannia to cause the end of all life upon the world. The Guardian created eight giant columns that ripped Britannia apart and corrupted many people leading them to commit acts contrary to the virtues. In short, most fans were disappointed to varying degree. While many elements of the previous Ultima games were brought back, many details of the continuity were completely ignored, wrongly interpreted or simply retconned leading to the disappointment of many fans, who accused the development team of having little experience with previous Ultima games. The game was also criticized by some for its limited plot, simple dialogue, and allegedly poor voice acting. These aspects included the lack of a party, action gameplay elements, and the size of world and towns. The game's graphics and music were often praised, but many other aspects were harshly criticized by some fans of the series. After several patches, the most significant bugs, memory leaks, graphical incompatibilities, and crashes were corrected however, performance still varied depending on hardware specifications. At the time of its release, the game was buggy, unpolished, and incompatible with some video cards often resulting in poor performance, corrupt savegames, and numerous crashes, as well as the game not being able to run at all on some computers. Ultima IX is one of the most controversial Origin Ultima games released.

Ultima 9 ascension