"Prince of Persia" Ups and Downs for 30 Years: A Doomed Project, The Dark Side Of The Prince
"Prince of Persia" Ups and Downs for
30 Years: A Doomed Project,
The Dark Side Of The Prince
A Doomed Project
So
there is the scene at the beginning of the article: The young project leader
Giannis Marat is worried about the upcoming expedition. Although the early
ideas for the new "Prince of Persia" have been in development for
some time, according to Marat, "I didn't get any new ideas at
all." The team designed things very old-school, nothing more than
running in a 3D environment and avoiding traps. Marat realized that the
team had to change completely, starting from scratch.
A
new six-person team was quickly formed. The only instruction Marat gave them
was to come up with "interesting designs that would please the
players." For Marat's team, colleagues at Ubisoft Montreal were not
optimistic. Think this is a failed project doomed to die.
But
the team’s creativity saved them at the last minute. According to the
designers’ brainstorming ideas, the new Prince of Persia will be more flexible
and actionable than most 3D game characters. "Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon" and "The Matrix" It is their ideal reference target. In
the new demonstration, the prince can not only climb the wall, but also swing
on the railing like a gymnast, etc.-These are the logo designs for
action-adventure games today. Was designed.
When Jordan Mackina watched the
demo, the team including Giannis Marat was still speculating, until Mackina
turned around and told them: "Guys, you guys have reawakened my passion
for making games."
So the new "Prince of
Persia" officially began to enter the production link, Jordan Mackina not
only served as the creative design, but also personally responsible for writing
the script for the game. As an experienced game producer, Mackinac has strict
and unique requirements for the narrative style of the new "Prince of
Persia". He believes that the game should minimize the number of
plots and allow players to participate in the development of the plot; at the
same time, the game plot and story should serve the gameplay itself, and should
not be separated from the gameplay to meaninglessly stack the plot.
The original background plot of
"Prince of Persia" is designed with a large number of characters from
different positions, lengthy dialogues, and a prince whose goal is not always
clear. At the insistence of Jordan Mackina, the overall plot of the game
has been extensively deleted, and the creative direction of the story has been
adjusted, focusing on the biggest creative gameplay of the game: the sand of
time that allows people to return to time to create stories And characters.
The idea for Sands of Time came
from the game’s creative director Patrice Desilets. This equally talented
designer (he later became the creative director of the "Assassin's
Creed" and "Assassin's Creed 2" trilogy) once proposed in the
previous game "The Adventures of Donald": when the player died Back
to the game, so that the player can avoid replaying the entire level, but was
rejected by the producer. However, Giannis Marat, the producer of "Prince
of Persia", liked this idea very much, and he did not hesitate to replace
the originally planned Unreal Engine with the emerald engine used in
"Beyond Good and Evil" in order to realize this function, because the
emerald engine is easier to implement. This feature.
Therefore, the theme and title of
the game are officially determined as "Sands of Time". The flexible
prince who is like a gymnast can reverse time has become the core gameplay of
the game. All story plots, scene levels, and action designs are developed
around the same theme.
Despite many talented producers,
clear game themes and goals, the subsequent development of "Sands of
Time" is still full of hardships and difficulties: shortened construction
period, reduced content, and replaced the image engine. . . and
many more. But within the end it proved to be worthwhile.
"Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" sold 2 million copies within
two months of its listing, which made Ubisoft show off to investors in its
earnings report that year. The media and players highly praised the
quality of the game. Many of the 3D action designs of "Sands of Time"
have become industry standards, and "Prince of Persia" has become an
extremely important new game IP under Ubisoft.
The Dark Side Of The Prince
The
outstanding performance of "Prince of Persia: Sands of Time" makes
every player look forward to the coming of the next game in the series, and in
the financial report of Ubisoft in the spring of 2004, it was also reported
that "Prince of Persia" was developing a sequel. news. Players
are eagerly waiting, hoping to play the Prince of Persia once again to
experience the Arab culture where romance and magic coexist.
However,
the transformation of the sequel "Warrior's Heart" surprised
everyone: the gentle prince in the previous game became mature, violent, dark,
and even swearing; the overall artistic style of the game changed from the
original Arabic Oriental style. It has become a fantasy Gothic style, which
makes players feel dark and depressed; the content of the battle has increased
significantly, and the female characters are dressed boldly. . .
Although the quality of
"Warrior's Heart" itself is still not low, the huge change in style
has attracted a lot of controversy. Players who like the romantic oriental
adventure style of "Sands of Time" and those who approve the dark
American action style of "Warrior's Heart" have quarreled and cannot
understand each other.
In fact, the biggest reason for
the change in style of "Warrior's Heart" is the replacement of the
core creative team. Giannis Marat, the production director of "Sands
of Time", started his gradual career after the game's great success, and
has never been the producer of a single game. The creative director of
"Sands of Time" Patrice Desiletz, originally responsible for the
sequel to "Sands of Time", has also spent nearly a year creating the
pre-concepts for the sequel to "Prince of Persia". The concept he
designed for the sequel is to let the player control a bodyguard to protect the
prince, and turn the sequel of "Prince of Persia" into an
assassin-like action game, named "Prince of Persia:
Assassin". However, Ubisoft refused to bring this idea into the
sequel of "Prince of Persia" on the grounds of "not focusing on
the protagonist of the series". But Desiletz and his team have since
been assigned to a new project to continue conceiving his assassin
game. Later we all learned that this game is "Assassin's Creed".
The original creator of
"Prince of Persia" Jordan Mackina, who was responsible for writing
the script and creative consultant for "Sands of Time", did not
participate in the development of the sequel. Because Disney just bought the
film adaptation rights of "Prince of Persia", Mckina signed to be the
screenwriter of the film, planning to write a new story specifically for the
film.
So although the development team
of "Heart of Warrior" has many employees of "Sands of
Time", the change of the main creative team directly led to a significant
change in the game style. The new producer no longer likes "Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "The Matrix", he likes "The Lord
of the Rings", "Silent Hill", Babylon and Sky Garden.
In addition to the change in
artistic style, "Warrior's Heart" has greatly adjusted the combat
system in "Sands of Time" that has been criticized by some
players. The prince's fighting styles are more diverse, the combination is
richer, and the action expressiveness is more impressive. It fully
embodies the prince's martial charm after he matures. The producer stated
that the purpose of the prince character design in "Heart of the
Warrior" is to arouse the anger of the players, so as to have an emotional
resonance with the troubled prince.
Although the change of style
makes "Heart of Warrior" full of controversy, it does add more and
richer elements to the previous work. In terms of sales, "Heart of
Warrior" initially performed slightly better than "Sand of
Time". In just one month, nearly 2 million copies were sold, and the
sequel was arranged as it should be.
In the last month of year December
2005, "Prince of Persia: Unparalleled Kings" was launched. As
the last part of the trilogy, "Wang Zhe Wushuang" basically follows
the creative team of "Heart of Warrior". This time the prince
returned to Babylon’s home, but the evil minister would still not let him go.
Sand would still destroy the city. The prince must save himself and everything
he loves again.
After experiencing the
controversy of "Warrior's Heart", the development team has a new
idea: Why not balance and unify the design of "Sands of Time" and
"Warrior's Heart" to retain as many players as possible ? So in
"Wang Zhe Wushuang", the prince infected by sand will split into two
personalities, light and dark. The light prince uses the blade of time as
a weapon and is good at fighting on the ground, just like the prince of
"Sands of Time"; while the black prince is more flexible and
bloodier, good at stealth assassination and street fighting. But becoming
a black prince will keep losing lives, and the game will fail if you don’t
return to being a prince of light before life dies.
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