It’s not everyday that we demo a game at an event and immediately ask to go back for seconds. The upcoming Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown managed to quickly sink its daggers into us with its punishing but rewarding combat, breathtaking vistas, and flashy animations. So naturally, we couldn’t walk away without taking another stab. This new Metroidvania-style take on the frenetic, spike-trap-dodging platformer is shaping up to be every bit as incredible as the genre it’s taken inspiration from — and all from a team that’s created some of Ubisoft’s best platformers.
Revealed in the opening moments of the Summer Game Fest 2023 live show, it's been 13 years since the series was last on consoles in The Forgotten Sands. Initial reaction to this new entry was somewhat divided, with some longtime fans disliking its presentation and others absolutely psyched to see the series return to its 2D roots. We went hands-on with a demo build at Ubisoft's Forward event and came away excited to play more.
Instead of taking the role of a time-rewinding Persian prince, you play as Sargon, a warrior led by a team of royal soldiers known as The Immortals, who are on a mission to rescue their very own Prince of Persia. Now look, we know how it could feel if Link was swapped out for a random Kokiri kid in the next Zelda game, but trust us. Sargon is a breath of fresh air and an incredibly acrobatic swordfighter that you’ll quickly grow fond of.
Generally speaking, The Lost Crown feels close to MercurySteam's Metroid Dread. You’ll explore a 2D map full of different biomes in search of secret rooms, hidden passageways, puzzles to solve, and enemies to tear down that’ll reward you with upgrades and new abilities. That's not to say this is some ripoff trying to cash in on Dread’s success. Ubisoft Montpellier has been developing The Lost Crown since 2019. This is the team who’ve shaped Rayman since the very beginning, and it seems to be giving this new Prince all the care and attention you'd hope for given the team's past achievements and the lineage of this series.
Combat is fast and fluid and Sargon having a wide range of weapons and skills at his disposal. You can hit close range with dual blades, long range with a limited amount of arrows, or fling a chakram infinitely at will. Character movement and weapon aiming is all controlled with the left analog stick just like in Metroid Dread. After dealing enough damage, a meter will slowly fill up giving you the chance to unleash a few different specials that either send an energy wave towards enemies, or create an area-of-effect healing spell for a limited time. You can also equip Sargon with a limited number of amulets that give him stat boosts and new abilities, like the power to turn your chakram into a vortex or simply restore a bit of health after a successful parry.
What really pulls the combat together is the fact nearly every enemy attack in the game can be parried with a tap of the 'L' button. Standard attacks and projectiles can be a bit trickier to deflect, but if you see an enemy swing towards you and their weapon starts to glow yellow, a successful parry means you’ll be able to counter with a unique move, occasionally accompanied by a unique animation. However, if you see the enemy glow red, you’ll want to leap back or sprint away as you can’t withstand or parry those.
In 2003's Sands of Time, the Prince of Persia series became famous for enabling you to turn back the clock momentarily to retry an enemy encounter, or to take another leap of faith. This time around Sargon comes equipped with the ability to teleport back to a past location. By tapping the 'ZL' button, you can create an apparition of yourself on the ground or in the air, and by hitting the button again shortly after, you instantly teleport back to that exact location. This can help you to get the upper hand against an enemy with a sneak attack, or to leap back up to a high vantage point after missing a jump. In theory, it’s similar to using the Sands of Time but in this case, time never moves backwards.
As you'd expect from the series, we encountered a few areas full of spike pads, pits, and rollers to leap over and plenty of poles to swing from (which no longer require perfect input timing — just aim the analog stick in the direction you want to jump). We’re hoping these kinds of areas will be sprinkled throughout the final game. We stumbled upon an area with a fairly lengthy string of traps to weave your way through which had our heart racing and made us feel right at home. A midair dash and the ability to hang and slide on walls like the maverick hunter Mega Man X also make the world a fun playground to explore.
We played through the half-hour-long demo on both PC and Switch, but we were genuinely surprised and pleased to see how well the game performed on Nintendo’s little console, even in handheld mode on a first-generation model, even if we had to squint a little. While chatting with a few developers during and after our demo, we were told The Lost Crown is indeed targeting 60 FPS in both handheld and docked mode. We were told that development is “Switch-led” and the Switch experience is one of the team's main priorities. It feels like fewer and fewer Switch versions of multiplatform releases get this much attention, with the aging hardware causing headaches for developers also targeting PS5 and the Xbox Series X. Even though the 4K beauty of the PC version first captured our hearts, we didn't feel too miffed to switch over to that 720p five-inch screen.
Visually, The Lost Crown shows off everything the Switch is capable of with a buttery smooth cel-shaded art style. The boss we encountered at the end of the demo took some effort to take down, but after dealing the final blow we were treated to a stunning cutscene of a Sargon ripping into it. There’s nothing better than being rewarded with a fancy animation after a big fight, so we’re looking forward to all the scrapes we’ll get into.
Given the number of leaked games and announcements these days, it seems like a rarity to be genuinely surprised by a game reveal. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is one we’ve been excited about since we first laid eyes on it, and we’re pleased we haven’t had any reason to be disappointed by the gameplay we've sampled so far. It’s going to be hard to sit back and wait till January next year for the game to launch, but we’ll do our best to enjoy the anticipation. After many years away, it's good to see this series back.
Comments 43
I figured this was going to be good. They're going back to the series' roots with the 2D style, so I'm looking forward to this game!
Developed by the Rayman Legends team.
At the very least, this should be a good game.
It pains me how many generic action/stealth Ubisoft puts out these days because, while I wouldn't call them bad by any stretch of the imagination, they've never held a candle to their original platformers imo. Glad to see Prince of Persia continuing on the legacy/pedigree established by the originals and Rayman!
Dreadful haircut aside, the game does look pretty good. I hope they keep the gruesome death animations from the early PoP games.
While chatting with a few developers during and after our demo, we were told The Lost Crown is indeed targeting 60 FPS in both handheld and docked mode. We were told that development is “Switch-led” and the Switch experience is one of the team's main priorities.
That's all I need to know. They've guaranteed themselves a day one purchase from me.
Glad it's shaping up well. Rap music aside, the trailer looked pretty good. And I definitely trust the Rayman Origins/Legends devs to deliver.
Wow, it looks pretty good. Will keep it on my radar, especially since the switch port is seemingly great!
Love everything I'm seeing and hearing(except that cringe rap), so it's a guranteed day 1 buy
High budget metroidvania from the Rayman Legends team with a focus on making a great switch version.
Didn't need the PoP licence to be all in on this but it's a cool bonus.
Great preview. I’m very interested.
It sounds great! Rayman Origins and Legends are some my favourite games ever, so hopefully this will be great too!
The music is completely wrong for this. I like the genre personally, but come on...
...any case, loved the old 2d games, this looks great. I'm down.
@Ralizah that sold it for me as well. The alternative was waiting until I had a PS5, but if it proves worthy in the long-run, I'm there.
The only negative would be Ubi almost immediately putting their titles on sale.
I enjoyed the multi-layered pun.
Removed - unconstructive
@Saturn64 I'd just move on then. It takes all of 30 seconds to realize the hero in this isn't the Prince. It says so right in the trailer. A bunch of heroes set out to SAVE THE PRINCE OF PERSIA.
and as for the music - yeah it sucks. It is promo music for a gd ad. The game itself might have twinkly middle eastern music for all we know.
self inflicted outrage is unbearable.
You gotta love the double standards though. Nobody bats an eye when anime characters have ridiculous, nonsense hairstyles (Cloud Strife, anyone?), but this guy's hair is too much for you?
You're spending at least a few years in hell for that terrible pun 😅
@Cashews @KIRO What music are we talking about? The trailer?
There’s gameplay on YouTube and it has a very ambient/Middle Eastern vibe to it that fits great.
Was a little worried about the (odd?) public reaction to this one and I'm glad to read that it may be as good as the gameplay looked. I do think marketing people fail when they show all the cinematics and put a small amount of actual gameplay in (or none!). It just leaves you wondering if the game is any good, or worse, not caring about it ever again.
For me, at least, I want to see the gameplay up front. Maybe they should do like movie trailers, where they show a brief montage of the exciting highlights at the start, but for video games that should be a montage of the gameplay, in my opinion.
@ElRoberico Like with Mario + Rabbids, I'll support them day one in the limited instances where they give Switch owners priority treatment by building the game to run well on that platform, even though I'm not a fan of their pricing strategy.
@Rainbowfire it's because the main character looks not white.
I may check this out a week after release when Ubisoft drop it to half price as usual.
Cool! I still expect to die a lot but looking forward to this one. While not the same I loved the AC side scrollers so I expect to enjoy this.
People really love to hate the unknown, don't they... Glad to see the initial hate has slightly turned towards acceptance already.
I said it then and will say it again, bring it, bring the games, it looks great fun. And as always (not just with Ubisoft games) I will be waiting for a deep sale, and once I'm satisfied with the price, I'll get it, enjoy it (patched by then if it was necessary), and I'll be a happy gamer with or without it
@Rainbowfire cloud strife has light skin and blonde hair. Most of the folks I saw freaking out were doing so because their limited worldview allowed them to assume Sargon was “Black” and they had to put on their keyboard racist t-shirts and start warming up for mental gymnastics. Half of them didn’t even notice he wasn’t the Prince. Just screams of so called “black washing”. I still say anybody that didn’t have the same reaction to WW and Godsmack in that trailer wasn’t complaining from a legitimate place. Same for the sands of time Prince’s at the time modern haircut. But it’s always lovely when horrible people out themselves. You know who is a landmine and who isn’t.
Very interesting. I tend to only like the elite non-Metroid Metroidvanias as it's not really my genre (though I love Metroid itself). So this'll have to be 8 or 9/10 for me to pull the trigger. Promising though.
Most exciting Ubisoft game since the first Mario + Rabbids game.
Where should I hand in my Edgelord Badge. I'm afraid I'm not offended by the music or the haircuts in that trailer at all. Clearly I am not fit for this stage.
@gcunit Kotaku is a good website if you are looking to be offended by something.
If there weren't so many games on my backlog, I'd be willing to give this a try. The mechanics look really cool.
Looks like it might be alright. I like the idea of the development being 'Switch-led', in this age where development cycles are getting longer and longer and pushing for more power and more realism when not every game needs that approach. Just because the game doesn't push the envelope technologically doesn't mean it's a bad game.
this game looks awesome!!
looks dull, main character seems to be reused from NBA 2k.
Is he wearing Jordans?
At first I didn't know how this game would work on Switch but seeing gameplay now, I could see how and why now. The more 3D Sands of Time remake that required lots of work and efforts got cancelled and instead we get this 2D game which required hardly any efforts is the substitute? Cool but my interest is now a maybe compare to before. Not saying 2D is bad, I'm a Trine player myself but this is a bit disappointing compare to my earlier expectation.
@ElRoberico No it's because the hair looks contemporary. Plenty of people are being racist about this game without you accusing everyone who has valid criticism of being racist.
@ElRoberico See? Look at the comment right before mine. I literally couldn't post a single comment without someone saying something mildy racist sounding while I typed.
Last time I was this excited for a game was when I heard about Metroid Dread. This news has me shivering in anticipation. Only TBD and already be in the eShop wishlist.
Haha love the title to this article.
Definitely getting this game. Great to see the Rayman Legends team put out another platformer.
What will the shinespark puzzles be? 😂
It will be weird to go from cinematic platformer with stiff controls to Metroid Dread--perhaps the slickest platformer out there.
This game is truly perfect for the handheld world. Switch, steamdeck, rog ally.
Cant wait for this game.
Those locks are what are dread-ful. Pun intended
Really looking forward to playing this, sounds like a lot of fun and great to have further confirmation that it runs well on Switch, too!
This looks awesome and I am definitely going to get it, but I wish games like these would go the Rayman/Ori art style instead of that 2d/3d look like this and Metroid Dread. Rayman stool looks amazing 10 years after it came out and it will still look just as good 10 years from now.
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