"Prince of Persia" Ups and Downs

For 30 Years:

Forgotten Sand, King's Heart

Forgotten Sand

With the end of the one-by-one trilogy, Ubisoft’s "Prince of Persia" series ushered in a period of silence. For a long time, players and fans have been waiting for Ubisoft to announce the next "Prince of Persia" sequel, but Ubisoft has been keeping a close eye on this. In those years, Ubisoft Montreal transplanted the "Prince of Persia" trilogy to the PSP platform, and also developed a tactical turn-based "Prince of Persia: War" on the NDS, but the orthodox sequel has never been reliable. News.

From today's perspective, Ubisoft's idea at the time is not hard to guess. Years of high-intensity "appearance" has given the IP of "Prince of Persia" a tendency to be drained. We all know that "Sands of Time" is widely acclaimed because it is based on a brand-new backtracking gameplay at the time, and the two subsequent sequels only make some modifications and fills in this gameplay, but No more eye-catching gameplay creation for this series. Over time, players will naturally experience aesthetic fatigue with the core gameplay of "Prince of Persia", which is also fully reflected in the sales. The sales of "Wang Zhe Wushuang" in the first month of 1.5 million are not bad, but it has declined compared to the previous game. trend.

Ubisoft Montreal understands that "Prince of Persia" has some value, but only if it has to make greater changes. So when "Prince of Persia" met the players again after the restart in 2008, not only the image of the prince changed drastically, but the overall plot and style of the game once again changed dramatically. The game uses the scimitar engine used in 2007 "Assassin's Creed", allowing developers to create a broader world of scenes. At the same time, some cartoon renderings are used on the screen, which makes this work "Prince of Persia" very different from the previous work in artistic style.

In the storyline, the prince became a prodigal son, trapped in the desert and lost his donkey. A major feature of the game is the addition of a new female character, Erica. She will always accompany the prince when he explores and fights, saves him and guides him when he makes mistakes and is confused. The game’s production staff stated that one of the main ideas in the initial development of this game was to use AI partners to replace the time-retracement gameplay left by "Sands of Time". The team discussed the ideas of fathers, children, brothers, etc., but considering the "Sands of Time" "Fara and the prince’s interaction is very fascinating, and finally decided to expand the concept.

Of course, such a change in personality will definitely make it difficult for fans of many series to accept it. After all, the title of the game is "Prince of Persia". But in fact, the new "Prince of Persia" has not changed much in the main creative team. The director, producer, designer and even the main programmer of the game are still the team of "Heart of Warrior" and "Wang Zhe Wushuang". It proved the determination of the development team to change.

In terms of market response alone, the new "Prince of Persia" sales of 2.2 million in two months is not ugly. However, from another perspective, this restart still failed to make "Prince of Persia" a major breakthrough in sales. Players and the media still have mixed opinions on the changes in the game. Moreover, from the perspective of development costs, the previous trilogy of "Prince of Persia" is a veritable new year product, and still has sales of around 2 million. However, the new "Prince of Persia" took more than two years, and the cost has risen sharply. Still did not drive sales.

Of course, another key factor is that "Assassin's Creed", which was originally created in the "Prince of Persia" series, has had an extremely strong response in the market. "The 8 million mark has passed. So even if "Prince of Persia" launched its last orthodox sequel "Forgotten Sands" in 2010, people can still feel that this series is inevitably experiencing a struggle.

A major selling point of "Forgotten Sands" is that it was launched almost at the same time as the Disney film "Prince of Persia: Blade of Time", and the game and the movie created momentum. But this also means that the background setting of the game will inevitably be pulled back to the setting of the trilogy. The newly restarted "Prince of Persia" could not continue to explore its more possibilities, so it was pulled back to the prince to use the ancient The power of sand fights against evil forces to save the world.

In all respects, "Forgotten Sands" with the "Assassin's Creed 2" Anvil engine remains a professional "Prince of Persia" work. In terms of how to build a traditional "Prince of Persia" game, Ubisoft Montreal's development team is already familiar with it, and the game is still remarkable in terms of level and battle design. However, in that era of fierce competition in 3D action games, it is not enough to stay commendable. The sales volume of about 2 million each time is increasingly unable to cover the high development cost. The original idea that movies can expand the IP fan base is also It was not possible. Therefore, as the copyright of "Prince of Persia" expired in 2013, Ubisoft chose to freeze this series that has never been able to achieve greater breakthroughs, even if it was once brilliant and still has a certain fan base.

King's Heart

Now that nearly ten years have passed since the release of the last orthodox sequel "Forgotten Sands", "Prince of Persia" has gradually become the most stable guest on the list of "Ubisoft's Big IPs". Even if Ubisoft announced the remake of "Prince of Persia: Sands of Time" not long ago, it still does not mean that Ubisoft wants to restart this IP again and arrange a 3A budget for it.

There are many reasons for the fall of the "Prince of Persia" series: the sales have never been able to break through, and the rising development cost is of course a very important aspect; the same background and theme setting will inevitably bring aesthetic fatigue, so the "Assassin's Creed" can travel the world "It can make players feel more fresh; there is no way to be too similar to the game type of "Assassin's Creed", after all, the two are originally from the same origin; the movies that originally created each other eventually straddle, and the sequel will be developed after the copyright expires. Still need to discuss with the copyright owner, these are the reasons why it is difficult for "Prince of Persia" to see players again.

However, we should not forget in any case that the main reason why "Sands of Time" was able to stand out and extend an entire series was that it built a set of novel and interesting gameplay around time retrospect and platform action adventure. . Just like the original developer of "Prince of Persia" Jordan Mackina insisted: All elements of the game should serve the game. The fall of "Prince of Persia" is actually caused by the exhaustion of simple gameplay creativity.

So do you want "Prince of Persia" to be resurrected? Then we can only pray that the brainstorming of designers in a certain Ubisoft studio is reliable enough. As for the other constraints, they are nothing more than small stumbling blocks.

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