New Prince of Persia previewed

By Oli Welsh Published 30 April, 2008

No time powers, influenced by Okami.

Joypad magazine - the French Edge - has published the first preview of the next Prince of Persia, just announced by Ubisoft.

The game will be coming to PC, PS3 and 360 this year and is being developed by the original Prince of Persia: Sands of Time team at Ubisoft Montreal. It features cel-shaded graphics, and scraps the Sands of Time rewind powers. The gameplay centres on healing a corrupted world in the style of Okami, Shadow of the Colossus or The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Joypad's preview shows striking images of the game's "illustrative" visual style - a subtle and highly detailed take on cel-shading - and the new Prince, a colourful vagabond swathed in scarves. He wouldn't look out of place in a Final Fantasy game, the article's author points out.

Creative director Jean-Christophe Guyot told Joypad that the aim was to create a more fantastical game and "more poetic vision" than the Sands of Time trilogy, with which it shares no connection. "The previous trilogy mixed the Arabian Nights in with historical Persia," he said (in French, so please excuse our rough translation). "We decided we'd prefer to return to the tales of the Thousand and One Nights for something more colourful."

The move caused some consternation with Ubisoft management, he explained, although they never opposed it. "They knew we weren't going to make a second Assassin's Creed," he said. "However, they did raise their eyebrows a bit at the new, stylised artistic direction. They were worried the Americans wouldn't like it. There were many discussions, but they never said no to us."

Guyot said the style was "Zelda-esque, old school, with very contrasting levels". The settings will be more open and organic than in previous games.

The game's plot draws on a Zoroastrian myth: the war between good and evil gods (and twins) Ohrmazd and Ahriman. Ohrmazd wins and imprisons his brother in a box hidden in an oasis. But Ahriman is freed by an unwitting thief centuries later, and remakes the world in his image, corrupting all living beings. It falls to the thief to undo his actions and return colour to the world, and in so doing he turns from robber into the titular Prince.

He heals the land by killing boss guardians, in the style of Shadow of the Colossus or Twilight Princess, and unleashing the power of the light-wells they guard. The land is then transformed in real-time - unlike Okami's cut-scenes - with grass growing and lighting and colour changing dynamically as the Prince moves through the world.

Although combat is still an important part of the game, enemies will be much less numerous and more vicious. The emphasis is on one-on-one swordfighting duels, with a very dynamic camera. It's described as being more Soul Calibur than God of War.

Platforming has been less drastically altered, with the major addition being a spiked glove that the Prince can use to slide along, and jump from, vertical surfaces. The sands of time powers have been removed due to overuse - "the concept has been so used and copied, we had to move on to something else, put it to one side" - although a still-secret "something" will take their place and fulfil some of the same functions.

Structurally, the game will be a mix of open-ended and linear. The Prince is free to explore the world map and take on challenges in whatever order he wants - dynamic settings taking care of the difficulty curve - but each challenge will be a fairly linear assault course, maximising fluidity and acrobatics, and ending in a boss confrontation. The developers are hoping the bosses will have some of the strong personality of Metal Gear Solid's.

As a fresh start for the Prince of Persia series, it all sounds very promising. Look out for more details from the UbiDays event on the 28th and 29th of May.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (39) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Bealsy #1 4 years ago

    so.... no link then?

  • MightyMouse #2 4 years ago

    Sounds brilliant, can't wait.

  • mikew1985 #3 4 years ago

    Sands of time was the only game I've really really enjoyed having played through 3 times(probably the only game I've ever played through 3 times!)

    I was immeasurably dissappointed with warrior within with its crap redesign and boring goth style and childish gore.
    I was supposedely the target market at the time (17 I think?!) but I really though it was the most hideous turn for the worse any sequel could have made.

    * rant over

    as you can see I feel strongly about it!

  • Blerk #4 4 years ago

    It's described as being more Soul Calibur than God of War.

    No! No! No no no! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

  • neilka #5 4 years ago

    Quick, someone think of a way to fit "cel" into "Prince of Persia" so irritating people can use it for the rest of time.

    Prince of Percel?

  • Killerbee #6 4 years ago

    Sounds brilliant (apart from the Soul Calibur reference - please no...).

    I just hope the vision for the game design translates into reality.

  • Rymar #7 4 years ago

    You can find some screens at the following link:
    http://fo rums.g4tv.com/thread.jspa?messa...

    Amazing new look!!

  • smirny #8 4 years ago

    looks like a REALLY nicely drawn animated film... cool :)

  • Jalle #9 4 years ago

    "Quick, someone think of a way to fit "cel" into "Prince of Persia" so irritating people can use it for the rest of time."

    Princell of Pershiading?
    Edited by 1 at 30/04/08 @ 16:20

  • japstersam #10 4 years ago

    those graphics look brilliant, i'm a fan of really stylised graphics, loved the way eternal sonata looked. lets hope that goes with old skool POP gameplay :)

  • Gnort #11 4 years ago

    I'm not sure I really like the sound of this, but kudos to Ubisoft for being brave enough to go off in a new direction rather than just buffing up the Sands of Time series and sending it out again. In this age of sequels and sameness, I'm always pleased to see major companies taking some risks.

  • brooza #12 4 years ago

    Never mind the Merkins, I'm not sure if I like the sound of it.

    Well, at least it can't be worse than the emo prince

  • Aysir #13 4 years ago

    As long as they get some decent script writers and voice actors as they had in Sands of Time (as opposed to the other two) then this game sounds fab!

  • OrgasmicMutton #14 4 years ago

    Sounds good.

  • TONYgr #15 4 years ago

    perfect style.go ubi!

  • simiankid #16 4 years ago

    Sounds good, looks good.

    Reminded me a bit of the last shinobi game, combined with Okami and garnished with ooh, I dunno, some parsley or summat.

    /always eats the garnish

  • monkie_king #17 4 years ago

    Good call with drawing a line under the SoT trilogy and starting afresh. Shame that trilogy only contained the one good game, though.

    What surprises me is that a rewind hasn't become a standard feature of platformers. It just makes so much sense considering what a bastard it is to judge leaps in three dimensions. I thought it would just get adopted by everyone, they way Halo's regenerative health and two-weapon limit has for FPSes.

  • mattigan #18 4 years ago

    Reminds me of Naruto:RotN

  • sneetch #19 4 years ago

    @neilka

    Princel of Percel?

    Sounds like the lord of washing powders.

    Sounds good, glad to see it's Ubi Montreal and they don't seem to be rawking us out this time.

    Sands of Time remains one of the best games I've ever played (it has great charm) but I thought POP Warrior Within sucked so hard that it's put me off trying the third one (I have it on Xbox but I was going to force myself through the second one before starting with the third one, bad idea I think).

  • bodypopper #20 4 years ago

    Cel shaded?

    Sounds like it could be a big draw.

    /gets coat

  • Razorus #21 4 years ago

    Fantastic news. Can't wait to hear more. The new look seems cool, kind of anime-esque. I can see they were inspired by Ninja Gaiden. The Prince is wearing a scarf and "naruto-shoes" so I'm getting the impression the gameplay will be a mix of old PoP, NG ad Naruto: Rise of a Ninja.


  • Kyle #22 4 years ago

    As long as it retains SoT's charm then I'm in.

  • asphaltcowboy #23 4 years ago

    Sounds fantastic!

  • Mindstorm #24 4 years ago

    I ilke the fact that, unlike many developers, they seem unafraid to acknowledge their influences. Kudos for honesty.

  • smelly #25 4 years ago

    Ooooh oooh oooh.. WANT!!!

  • MrDurandPierre #26 4 years ago

    Wow! The article sounded nice. Okami, Twilight Princess, and SotC are 3 of my absolute favorite games of all-time, and Pop 1 and 3 in the SoT trilogy were fantastic as well, but I had slight reservations because it's such a departure for them and I wasn't sure they'd be able to handle and open-world game as well. But those screenshots are absolutely amazing! I still say Okami on the lowly ol' PS2 is still the best looking game ever made (though Bioshock and MGS4 are up there) and I've been dissapointed that developers haven't been using cel-shading on next-gen consoles. Crackdown is the only time I can remember this happening and it looked rather nice, but I wasn't all that into the more urban aesthetic. But this looks right up there with Okami. This game is right up there with RE5 and Brutal Legend as my most anticipated game of 2008.

  • Kazzahdrane #27 4 years ago

    Sounds like an absolutely fantastic idea. 5 Stars to Ubisoft for not just making another game in the same vein as the last-gen trilogy!

  • septimus #28 4 years ago

    Please be good. Please be good. Please be good! *fingers crossed it lives up to even that small write-up*

  • AphoticCosmos #29 4 years ago

    They are no making a second Assassin's Creed, they are making a new PoP.

    I really hope that's not true. I'd much rather have Assassins' Creed 2 personally. Never got into PoP, but AC was a brilliant game in my books.

    [It's on the link to images]

  • WinterSnowblind #30 4 years ago

    I dislike how the Prince looks like a ninja. The big scarf is very cool, but the mask is just.. ugh.
    I do love the style though, I believe they were going for the water pastel look that we saw in the Street Fighter IV trailer.

  • NegativeZero #31 4 years ago

    Sounds great. Especially the reduction of numbers of enemies. I loved the platforming and puzzles of SoT but the combat drove me up the wall. Repeatedly killing the same respawning enemy over and over and over before you can continue isn't fun.

  • paul_haine #32 4 years ago

    "The sands of time powers have been removed due to overuse - "the concept has been so used and copied, we had to move on to something else, put it to one side""

    Where else has this feature been used then? It's a shame they're not keeping it, it's one of the best additions to the platforming genre I've seen in a long time.

  • peak_performance #33 4 years ago

    Personally, I think it looks more like persian art than "anime" art. I kinda like it.

    Good thing it's not AC2 as well - SoT was much better executed in every aspect. I wouldn't mind them incorporating some aspects of it though :)

  • Slamhound #34 4 years ago

    So let me get this straight, a new PoP game, but lacking the one thing that made the last trilogy anywhere remotely interesting, namely all the time control?

    Face it, without that trick pony, the games were pretty "meh".

  • Ignatius_Cheese #35 4 years ago

    For the French-speaking population of Eurogamer, here are the scans with the screens/artwork in context.

  • penhalion #36 4 years ago

    Thanks Ignatius_Cheese :)

    I loved sands of time and the last one the two thrones (let's just pretend warrior within didn't happen).

    Edit: I'm a bit worried about the sands being missing but, I guess that's explained by the two thrones ending. I am definitely going to miss the ability to rewind from a fatal death plunge while being wiser and pre-warned that the floor falls in after 5 seconds! Surely the removal of the sands now means that we'll all be falling to our deaths with great frustration instead of rewinding.

    If Ubi ever read internet threads I would suggest using a trick taken from that awful Nicolas Cage film "Next". Give the prince the ability to project himself a few seconds into the future, to try out different things. The power wouldn't be too overused, because you'd effectively have to do any projected sections twice (once as projected prince and once as real prince). Death of a projection would snap you back into the prince with a small health loss due to the shock.

    ...feel free to call my off the top of head idea silly people :)
    Edited by 1 at 01/05/08 @ 10:15

  • Daikon #37 4 years ago

    The game's plot draws on a Zoroastrian myth

    Any EG readers who actually know what Zoroastrianism is please raise your hand.

  • john_silence #38 4 years ago

    No link because Joypad is "one of those paper things", as one EG editor wrote relevantly a few years ago.
    I like the sound of this game. Thanks for the link Ignatius_Cheese. Tu es Français ? I am French and often use variations on the word Fromage for my gaming aliases. We're silly, French people are. And we smell. And eat frogs on snails on cheese.

  • Barkotron #39 4 years ago

    "Any EG readers who actually know what Zoroastrianism is please raise your hand."

    *raises hand*

    Looking forward to this - looks very nice.