Prince of Persia The Lost Crown sees Ubisoft revive the long-running franchise for a new side-scrolling action adventure.
One of the more surprising announcements to emerge from last night’s Summer Game Fest, Prince of Persia The Lost Crown revives a franchise that has lain dormant since 2010’s The Forgotten Sands.
Unlike most other 21st century series entries, Prince of Persia The Lost Crown heads back to its side-scrolling roots, offering a 2D hack-and-slash experience that vaguely recalls an early Ninja Gaiden title. The freshly redesigned prince can wall-jump, perform gravity-defying speed-dashes, and pull off slick mid-air attacks with his bow or dual swords.
It’s all a far cry from the 1989 original, where the prince would tiptoe up to the edge of a precipice, take a deep breath, make a death-defying leap to a platform, miss, then plummet to his death on a set of spikes.
Developed by Ubisoft Montpellier, The Lost Crown mixes fast-paced action with 3D cut-scenes and what look like quicktime set-pieces. In a nod to The Sands of Time, there are also “Time Powers” according to Ubisoft’s press release, though it isn’t immediately obvious from the trailer what these are. The Lost Crown seems to show its prince slowing down time during combat; it’s not clear whether we’ll be able to rewind time to, say, undo a mistimed jump, Sands of Time style.
Designed by Jordan Mechner in the late 1980s, Prince of Persia was one of the most quietly influential games of its era. Mechner’s use of rotoscoped animation made it look and feel entirely different from other platformers of the 80s, and its puzzles, style and atmosphere still fascinate developers today. You can see traces of Prince of Persia in the likes of Planet of Lana and inkle’s upcoming A Highland Song, for example.
Prince of Persia even survived the transition to 3D in the new millennium; 2003’s The Sands of Time was a series high point. A remake of that game is currently in development at Ubisoft Montreal, though per a May update, it’s “still in an early stage.”
Prince of Persia The Lost Crown releases on 17 January 2024 on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PS4 and PS5.
