HomeFeaturesPrince Of Persia: The Lost Crown
Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown is so much better than it looks in the reveal trailerReturn of the king
Return of the king
Image credit:Ubisoft
Image credit:Ubisoft
After itsbig reveal at Summer Game Feston Thursday, the internet has not taken kindly to Ubisoft’s new Prince Of Persia game. There have beenreportsthatThe Lost Crown’s gameplay reveal trailer (which currently sits across five separate YouTube channels) is continuing to rack up significantly higher dislikes than likes since it got announced, and many seem to have taken issue with the trailer’s accompanying rap song and that it doesn’t look like a “true” Prince Of Persia game, whatever the heck that means. It’s disappointing to see a game instantly dismissed like this, not least because, as someone who’s actually been to Ubisoft Montpellier to play the damn thing, this is arguably the most exciting Prince Of Persia game in years - and certainly more interesting than thetroubled Sands Of Time Remake.
The developers at Ubisoft Montpellier have acknowledged it’s been a challenge bringing Prince Of Persia back for a modern audience. Work started on the game around four years ago at the end of 2019 - almost a year before the Sands Of Time Remake wasfirst announced. Back then, it was no doubt originally intended to be a chaser to this revamped Sands Of Time (which was initially dated to appear in early 2021), but as the years wore on withsuccessivedelaysandrefundsfor the latter, The Lost Crown will now be first out of the gate. But clearly, being thrust out into a world of baying Geoff Festers has only made the shadow of its beloved 20-year-old predecessor loom even larger.
Prince of Persia The Lost Crown - Reveal Gameplay TrailerWatch on YouTube
Prince of Persia The Lost Crown - Reveal Gameplay Trailer
“It’s a challenge because when you begin [work] on such an important brand, you know that everyone has this vision of how Prince Of Persia should be,” producer Abdelhak Elguess tells me. “There are so many successful video games, there’s the movie, and there were different kinds of video games - 2D, 3D - so the legacy is very important. So as a creative team, when you begin working, you need to respect all the work that has been done. But at the same time, you need to take the right decision and say, ‘Okay, this is the legacy, we need to take some part of it, but we are doing a game for 2023, 2024, so we need to bring something new to the players. […] We knew from the beginning that if we’re coming back, we need to come back with a quality game.”
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Ubisoft
The world of Mount Qaf is stuffed with eye-catching details, with big centrepieces complementing smaller, incidental set dressing. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Ubisoft
My preview session began as Sargon enters Mount Qaf for the first time, which is a little way into the game after its opening tutorial siege. It had also been specially prepared for my play session, locking off several of its Metroid-like pathways so we could focus on the task at hand - exploring its initial citadel and adjoining autumnal forest areas, where the manticore boss Jahandar lay in wait at the end of it for us. These are the locations you’ll see in my screenshots, but I also got to play another section further on in the game that focused on a place called the Sacred Archives, whose shifting staircases moved up and down in time with Sargon facing left and right, and the Pit Of Eternal Sands, whose smashing pillars everywhere made for a very tricky platforming challenge.
A successful parry will see Sargon perform a flashy finisher move that looks like it’s come straight out a comic book panel. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Ubisoft
As you might expect from the studio behind excellent platformersRayman LegendsandRayman Origins, Sargon is a lithe and tactile lad. His pair of twin swords make him a formidable melee fighter, but he’ll also have a bow and a chakram to chip away at enemies at range. Talismans can be equipped to bring extra qualities to your arsenal, such as adding a lick of fire to your arrows, or giving you the option to evade on the spot rather than the default back dash.
But it’s Sargon’s parry attack that really makes his blades sing. When enemies charge at you with a yellow glint in their eye, a successful parry will see Sargon execute a devastating finisher attack, leaping up into the air, somersaulting over their heads and slicing through flesh as stylish flashes of colour appear onscreen to accent the power of his sword swings. It requires reasonably precise timing, but the window isn’t so narrow as to feel punishing or frustrating. I was still able to parry correctly, for example, when dealing with multiple enemies onscreen coming at me from all angles, and I was also pleased to see you can it to deflect incoming arrows, too, which felt extra stylish and amped up the smug factor.
Sure, I felt rather less smug when The Lost Crown’s large, screen-hogging manticore boss absolutely mullered me ten times in a row (almost half of which were just before I dealt the final blow, too, the bastard), but these tough, Persian folklore-inspired monsters never crossed that line intopure Soulsian despaireither. There are patterns that can be memorised, stinging poison tail attacks that can be dodged and avoided, and pesky magic chucking clouds that can sawn through with a well-directed chakram throw. (I was also pleased to see aBIG PIGboss in the forest, too, just in case you were wondering if you’ll be able to keep up your swine-slaying quota in the new year).
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Ubisoft
In the autumnal forest, you can shoot or slice buds to create shroomy platforms. See how Sargon’s air dash looks like he’s wall-running, too. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Ubisoft
Outside of battle, Sargon’s jumps, slides and air dashes make him feel like the supercharged cousin of Ori and Samus under the thumbs, lending flashy acrobatics an air of satisfying sophistication and sensitivity. The air dash in particular has the pleasingly subtle detail of Sargon mimicking a Sands Of Time wall-run - an homage to the older Prince Of Persia games, the devs tell me - but it’s his ability to freeze and rewind time that feels like the most playful riff on the series’ history. Unlike Sands Of Time, this isn’t simply a redo safety net, you see. With a squeeze of the shoulder button, Sargon can create an image of himself that he can snap back to on a second button press, potentially leaping out of harm’s way, or even unleashing another sneaky attack if you froze mid-arrow pull, for example. Later platforming sections also had Sargon use this ability to great effect to traverse tricky archive corridors as well, creating images of himself to zap back to newly materialised platforms after hitting a switch with his sword or bow so he didn’t fall into the pit of spikes below. And if you’re really clever, you can even use it catch your own chakram and parry it back into a monster’s face.
I’m also excited to see exactly where else Mount Qaf will take us on Sargon’s journey. While Sargon and the rest of his gang have a chunky, anime and comic book-infused look about them, the backdrops you’ll be wall-jumping through are a sumptuous mix of 2D and 3D visuals that are packed with details to draw the eye. Monuments loom large in the background to give each room its own striking centrepiece, but some of The Lost Crown’s better moments bring them right into the foreground and incorporate them into its puzzles. Early on in the citadel, for example, temporal anomalies can be smashed with Sargon’s sword to bring the past roaring back into the present. In this case, it was an enormous stone statue of a deity whose multiple golden stone hands, feet and scales of justice reformed to create new walls and platforms for Sargon to continue his journey upward.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Ubisoft
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / UbisoftImage credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/UbisoftAnime is a big inspiration for The Lost Crown’s visuals, and I spotted several statues of One Piece, Demon Slayer and Dragon Ball characters on the developers' desks.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Ubisoft
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Ubisoft
Most of all, though, I’m just looking forward to seeing what kind of horrible nasties I’ll be slicing up with Sargon’s swords. While the citadel mostly consisted of zombified soldiers and the like, the forest was chock full of nasty little goblin boys with big spears and bright leafy manes. Later on in the archives, there was also a giant blind librarian who’d pursue you if he sensed your presence - clearly taking a few leaves out of Metroid Dread’s manuscript here - as well as chumps with big stone slabs on their back who’d counter any attempt to slide behind them with a big bash of their stone turtle shells.
Hitting temporal anomalies can alter a space in real-time, creating new platforms and pathways for Sargon to get where he needs to go. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Ubisoft
It’s moments like this, moments that can only possibly be glimpsed and likely missed in a blink when viewed in a trailer, that really make me excited for The Lost Crown. Ubisoft Montpellier have made some of the finestplatforming gamesof the last decade with Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends, and this latest entry in the Prince Of Persia series looks to be continuing that lineage to dazzling effect.
Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown is coming out on January 18th 2024, and it will be available on Steam, the Epic Games Store and the Ubisoft Store.
